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"Can you please stop being mad at my brother?"
"Only when he apologizes for being an asshole."
Yebin huffed as she had no choice but follow her best friend through the entrance of the museum. To be more specific, the SMTown COEX Atrium.
Yoo Hanui had been an avid follower of popular music. Undoubtedly, majority of her music tastes include a lot of boy groups. Even the first time Yebin mer her friend, she was a massive fan of Super Junior, completely loud and obvious about her love for the group. And as years past, and more groups emerged into the scene, Hanui knew she biased the artists of one of the Big Three companies, SM Entertainment.
If Yebin was a die hard fan for Queen, for Hanui, it was with EXO. And the moment the entertainment company opened the museum for fans to come and visit, Hanui was ready to spend all her money on it. It was her safe haven whenever she had the free time to visit. She probably went there enough times to know every bit of information the museum had to offer. Yebin remembered the last time Hanui had went, she was very disappointed when the museum wasn't updated with their artist's comebacks.
And today was one of the rare times where Yebin had willingly accepted the offer to go with Hanui to the museum, despite not being as big as a fan of the artists as her friend. Besides, Hanui said she would pay for her entrance fee, so Yebin saw no reason to decline. Plus, this was her chance to leave the apartment and leave the tense atmosphere that emitted from it. Ever since the day Hojun had picked her up from her busking and had been mean to her possible new friend, they had arrived home in an incredibly bad mood.
An argument had ensued the moment they entered the apartment.
Hojun said that she shouldn't have let Youngho be so nice to her. Yebin shot back that there was no need to be so aggressive and rude to him.
Yebin wasn't going to let this one slide, not this time.
Sure, there had been plenty of run-ins with creeps that had lurked after her and Hojun had heroically come to her rescue. But this, with Youngho? It wasn't it. Youngho was different from those others. They met warmly. Youngho was kind. And Yebin wasn't going to forgive her boyfriend for going overboard.
No amount of cuddles and whispers of apologies wasn't going to help.
The two girls entered the first room with all the artist's information of their debut and comebacks. Yebin approached the circular shelf that was fixated in the middle of the room, a shelf full of the artists' CDs that they can listen to. Luckily, as it was a weekday, there wasn't as much people visiting, Yebin could pick out a CD she wanted to listen to. Hanui stepped over to her side just as she was skimming through her musical options. "You know how oppa is," the doe-eyed lass muttered with a small pout.
"I know. And dear god, I love him but he was so... irrational that day, Hanui," Yebin grumbled. "The other times, I get it. I didn't want those guys to bother me, and Hojun had scared them off. But..."
"What? This one was different?" Hanui finished her sentence. Yebin couldn't reply, as it was along the lines of what she wanted to say. As much as she thought about it, she can't imagine the warmhearted, tall boy as anything close to bad. "You don't know that, Yebinnie. Sometimes, the ones that you don't expect are the worst ones of all."
Yebin frowned at Hanui. "Oh, but surely not your EXO-oppas, right?" She scoffed in a sarcastic tone.
"That's..." Yebin's comment clearly hurt her, as Hanui seemed lost for words. "Don't be like that! This was a guy that you randomly met. You're only so accepting because he likes Queen too." Hanui fully turned towards her, her gaze intense. "You know how we are. The three of us, we look out for each other. Ever since young, it had been you, me, and Hojun-oppa. We've been through some shit times and now we're at a better place in our lives, right?"
Yebin couldn't say anything.
Better place in our lives?
They were three young adults that are barely going by living day by day.
It was a twisted life, honestly.
They were twisted.
Hanui was undoubtedly the most successful between the three of them right now. She is currently in college that is a pain to pay for. Her dream is to become a veterinarian, has been a dream ever since young. In fact, the two girls have become friends in elementary school because they shared the love of cats. And now, she was doing a part-time job in an animal clinic, a job that she enjoys a lot but doesn't pay her enough to help much with expenses.
Yebin isn't really sure how they manage month after month with all the finances they have to deal with.
Hojun gave up so much.
If things were different, Hojun would probably would also be in college on a full-ride scholarship by being the next best baseball player. During their junior high and high school years, he was an absolute star on the field. Everyone in school knew that Yoo Hojun would go to the big leagues of he kept at it. However, after a big fight that broke out in one of the major baseball games during his last year in high school, he lost all those chances... That was the very game that was going to get him scouted by an impressive coach from one of the national baseball teams.
That one fight ruined his planned future.
Hojun had mentioned over and over how he was okay that happened. He said that, if he hadn't just started working right after high school, Hanui wouldn't have been able to go to college either because of how their family is. But, Yebin knew. That had been one of his biggest regrets of his life, despite finding a new passion of running a club for young adults.
And there she was.
Park Yebin that cut herself out from her family.
After her parents have divorced when she was 8 years old, that was when everything went downhill. While her mother ran away to the States (where she had grew up before coming to Korea), her father remarried two years after.
Actually, no. Yebin had been cut out from the family ever since then. As years passed and her father no longer seemed to care for her, that was it. There was a new family, and Yebin never felt like a part of it. She absolutely hated everyone. She hated her stepmother, who tried to force herself on being her new mother even before she got married to her father. Nagged and shouted at Yebin even though she was not her child. She hated her father for letting the divorce happen, and forgetting her mother all too soon. And she hated her mother for forgetting all about her.
And so the moment she could, Yebin left that house and never looked back. It was her that lead them to get an apartment out in the city, and Hojun and Hanui were all too accepting of it because they knew they had to take her away.
They were three young adults with a heaviness in their hearts, who only had each other in this dark world.
So of course, Yebin should rely on Hojun and Hanui. Of course.
But, Yebin did wish there was something more.
She wasn't sure what she wanted, but... more than this.
Yebin shook away the unnecessary thoughts when she found one album she had wanted to listen to, SHINee's Odd album. She took down the album from the shelf and went over to the benches where the provided CD players were at. She peered up at her friend and waved her hand at her to go. "G0 ahead and have your fun. Just let me know when you're done looking at everything, okay?" Yebin told her.
A saddened expression crossed Hanui's face. "You're not going to come with me?"
"If I've seen it once, I've seen it all," Yebin uttered. She pressed the play button on the player, and SHINee's songs began to play through the headphones. "This is what you should've expected from me. Maybe I'll join you after I listen to some songs."
"You better," Hanui huffed with a pout. "Don't make me waste my money." With that, the long-haired lass turned her heel and began her own adventure. Hanui spent a good fifteen minutes in the first room alone, rereading the information that was written around. Afterwards, she had disappeared into the next room, leaving Yebin alone with just a couple other visitors strolling about.
Yebin sat in the bench for a while, to the point that she had listened through the entire album. Her mind had been completely blank as she let the music go through one ear and out the other. And don't get her wrong, she actually enjoyed this album after Hanui showed it to her for the first time. It was just that her life always got her mind in a haze. With her family problems and her fight with her boyfriend, she kind of wished she would disappear in an endless void.
A sigh.
Yebin stood up and went back to the music shelf to pick out another album to listen to. She was stuck picking between a couple albums that caught her attention. She grabbed onto Super Junior D&E's The Beat Goes On and BOA's Only One albums, torn to what she would want to listen to more. Just as she held up the two albums to look at, her vision began to focus on something in front of her. There were a few guys, four guys in total, that entered the museum. They all had face masks and hats on, which only made Yebin suspicious.
She was about to turn away to get back to what she was doing, but... something about the tallest one struck her. Her eyes darted back to the man, her heart suddenly racing.
"Youngho?"
Yebin didn't mean to say the name out loud. It just slipped past her tongue, and before she knew it, she gained attention of the boys before her. And when her eyes met the one that she had been staring at, it already confirmed her guess.
That was Youngho.
Out of all days and out of all places, she ran into Youngho here.
"Yebin?" She heard him muffle out in surprise.
Yebin set down the albums back on the shelf and she approached him. She was flabbergasted. She just couldn't believe that the man she felt the most sorry for was right in front of her right now.
"Ah, this is Yebin?" One of the guys, one with a smallish face, uttered. Yebin blinked in surprise.
Youngho talked about her to these guys? She could feel her face flush. What did he tell them? Surely the horrible predicament that had happened just days ago.
It was then that very boy held out his hand to her. "Hello, we're Youngho's friends. I'm Taeyong." Cautiously, Yebin's hand met his to shake it. Somehow, his name echoed in her mind, but she wasn't sure why. "He showed us your instagram with all your covers. You're amazing!"
"Yeah, I'm now a big fan!" Another, one noticeably younger, chimed in excitedly. "I'm Mark!"
"And I'm Jaehyun," the last unknown person said with a welcoming dimpled smile. "We have one dongsaeng that likes Queen too, so he was very happy to have heard your covers too!"
Wait, all three of their names... that were so goddamn familiar to Yebin. But where did she hear it before?
"Johnny-hyung told us about how nice you are in person! We're kind of happy to be able to meet you like this," Mark interjected, his puppy-like eyes wide with wonder. "Ain't it quite the coincidence, hyung?"
"You can say it is fate," Jaehyun replied with a playfulness in his voice, that earned an unamused glare from Youngho himself.
Wait, Johnny? Okay, yes. All these names together, Yebin was sure she had heard them before. It was beginning to drive her nuts, but not as much as Youngho being here too.
"Youngho, can I talk to you about the thing?" Yebin interrupted the boys enthusiastic chatter, her eyes trained on the tallest. "Sorry, I hope you all don't mind if I steal him away for a second?"
The three don't look to be affected by her question. In fact, they were already nudging the boy closer to her, basically accepting her request. Yebin glanced up at Youngho, hoping for his own answer on this. He merely just nodded his head to a different room to the museum that they would get some privacy to talk. Youngho set off first, in which Yebin could only follow after him.
The room they entered was significantly darker than the prior on, and was meant to showcase information about the SMTown Live concerts. Youngho had walked around to see if there were anyone else inside. When he went back to Yebin, he gestured for her to talk as he removed the mask from his face. She guessed they were really alone in the room.
Yebin swallowed down the nerves that built up ever since seeing Youngho again. "I want to apologize about what happened the other day," she uttered, her head hung low. She couldn't even bother to look at him. She was afraid of seeing a disappointed expression on his face right now. "What Hojun did was very shitty and rude and I wish I did something then to stop him from insulting you like that so openly."
She heard him hum in response. "That Hojun dude... is that really your boyfriend?"
The short-haired lass picked up her gaze. There was something to Youngho's face that she couldn't quite guess. It honestly made her feel bad. "Y-Yes, he is. He was only like that because I've had my fair share of run-ins with creeps whenever I go out and perform. He has his own way of caring and sometimes it comes off as really aggressive, so I want to apologize in his place."
"Did he actually apologize or it's just from you?"
Yebin frowned. "It's just from me. I would just hate it if our friendship ended over something like that." Once realizing her words, Yebin's cheeks burned in embarrassment. How could she just utter something as cheesy as that? Did Youngho even consider themselves as friends after only two times of meeting? "I-I mean that!—"
"I've never seen you so flustered," Youngho chuckled, earning an even more prominent frown from the girl. He hummed again, her lips pursed. "I'll admit it. I was caught off guard, but I do enjoy being friends with you, Yebin, if you really do see me as that already. I just don't want to ruin anything with your boyfriend though."
She was at a loss of words. She could just convince Hojun that Youngho was just a friend, he was no threat to their relationship. With the way she was able to connect with Youngho, she didn't want to lose him so easily. "Don't worry about that. He was just jumping to conclusions since he doesn't know you. I'm... sure he would like you if he knew you better."
"If you say so," Youngho replied. A small smile tugged at his lips. "So... still friends?"
"Yeah, still friends!" Yebin returned the smile. "You know, I thought you'd never want to see me again since you didn't come to my last busking session."
A sheepish look crossed his face. "About that... I didn't mean to not go. Something came up and I had no way of contacting you so..." He shrugged his shoulders. "That was mostly my fault. Why? Did you miss me?"
Yebin knew he meant it as a joke, but it didn't stop her cheeks from burning red again. "You really have to attack me like that?"
"I'm kidding!"
"You better."
Youngho let out a genuine, hearty laugh, probably over the expression Yebin just made. But honestly, she didn't mind. As long as she knew the two of them are okay, and are, in fact, friends, she was fine with whatever teasing and jokes he had. "I... didn't expect you to be in this museum. You know, after what you told me about companies, and all," Youngho said next.
"I should be asking you that."
"Oh, trust me, I have good reason to be visiting."
Yebin pursed her lips, staring at the man before her. "Well, I came mainly because of my best friend. She is a very big fan of SM's artists so she visits here often, and I just so happened to tag along. So, your reason then?"
"I feel that you'd find out soon enough."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Just think of it as a pleasant surprise." With that, Youngho made his way out of the room. Yebin sighed, seeing she won't be able to get much else from the man and followed after him.
They went back to Youngho's waiting friends. Yebin gave a small nod at them. "Sorry. Just had to talk to him."
"Don't worry about it, Yebin-sshi," Taeyong chimed, waving his hand dismissively at her. He then glimpsed over at Youngho. "We do have to go though."
Yebin uttered, "Already?"
"Yeah, sorry, Yebin-sshi. But it was really nice meeting you!" Jaehyun said next. "Maybe we can see you perform some stuff live next time?"
"That would be so cool!" Mark responded with a nod.
"Then we should exchange numbers," Yebin suggested. She looked up at Youngho. "So, we can plan a meet up more accordingly."
"Sounds good to me," Youngho answered.
It was then Yebin got the number from Youngho and the other three boys she seemed to have befriended. She was content with herself now. She guessed she should thank herself for letting Hanui drag her to the museum.
"So, just curious, Yebin-sshi," Mark said all of a sudden. "You don't know us?"
Yebin narrowed her eyes in confusion, brows knitted together. "This is the first time I met you guys instead of Youngho though." The other three boys have given the youngest a stern look, which only confused Yebin further. "Never mind then! Hopefully, we'll get to see you soon!"
"Sure."
The four boys went back to wearing their masks then left through the entrance to the museum, all waving their goodbyes to her. Yebin watched as they disappeared from view, as she pondered more on what Mark meant when he said that. But who cares, honestly? She was on good terms with Youngho again and she got more chances to see him again. This definitely lifted her mood tenfold.
"Yebinnie~" The very girl felt someone cling onto her right arm. It was Hanui that linked her arm with hers and she gave her a look. "I was hoping to see you when I went upstairs to the second floor! Were you still listening to your music?"
Ah... she didn't see me with him this time.
Yebin just nodded her head, giving her friend a warm smile. "Yeah, I was actually about to come up before you came here. Let's go up, then?"
"Can we order something from the cafe then?"
"You know damn well how pricey that stuff is and you already got yourself an EXO bottle from the other time!... As well as Super Junior's and F(X)'s... Let's go to a cheaper place in the COEX mall, okay?" Hanui gave a pout, but nonetheless, she agreed. "Let's finish up here then. I want to get some coffee since it's so cold today."
Yebin let Hanui drag her to the next part of the museum.
And that day, it was the start of everything.
A change that Yebin didn't know would happen.