Chapter 258: Featuring (4)

The two of them got closer and closer. They were both panting heavily since they had just performed a high-intensity choreography. The song was on the verge of ending; they needed to get ready to strike the ending pose, but...

“...”

Je-Woon’s arm was not letting go of Kang Ra-Eun’s waist. All sorts of thought raced through her head as Je-Woon continued to close the distance between them.

‘Should I just stop thinking and kick him away?’

That would for sure result in a broadcasting accident.

‘What do I do? What the fuck do I do?!’

Ra-Eun went into a state of panic. Before she knew it, she had closed her eyes shut. Je-Woon, who had been observing Ra-Eun’s face from a hair’s breadth away, hesitated for a moment and then pulled Ra-Eun back up on her feet.

“...?”

Ra-Eun had been freed. She stared dumbfoundedly at Je-Woon, who smiled at her awkwardly. He then struck the ending pose, to which Ra-Eun also quickly did at the right time of the song. The camera zoomed in on their faces. The program director pointed at the corners of his own mouth, indicating that Ra-Eun needed to smile.

Ra-Eun forced the corners of her mouth to curl up. And just like that, the troubling stage performance had come to an end.

***

Ra-Eun headed to her waiting room as soon as the performance had finished. She recalled the disaster that had almost occurred a few minutes ago. If Je-Woon had gotten a few centimeters closer, their lips might have touched.

‘Fuck... That wasn’t part of the rehearsal.’

Ra-Eun’s heart raced as she recalled that moment during the performance. She wondered what could have possibly gotten into Je-Woon to do such a thing, but couldn’t understand at all.

‘Even so, it’s a bit iffy for me to ask him directly if he had tried to kiss me for real.’

Their faces might have just gotten a bit too close due to a minor error in the choreography; in other words, a coincidence.

‘But... Je-Woon sunbae’s eyes were dead serious for that to be the case.’

Ra-Eun had even closed her eyes before she had realized it. That was how serious he had seemed.

‘Goddammit! I don’t know!’

Her head and heart would burst if she thought about it any more than this. She decided to just be happy that the stage performance had been a success.

***

There was an afterparty right after the first stage recording. Ra-Eun wanted to use this opportunity to ask... No, interrogate Je-Woon about whether his attempt to kiss her had been an accident or not. However, she could not muster up the courage to, and it was a bit weird to ask something like that during an afterparty. In the end, she had not managed to ask him due to several complicated reasons, and a week flew by just like that.

‘This won’t do.’

Ra-Eun continued to feel stifled because that moment was stuck inside her head despite the fact a week had passed. She picked up her smartphone and messaged someone. She then got ready to go out as soon as she got a reply.

Seo Yi-Jun, who had just returned home after going out, saw that Ra-Eun was getting ready to leave.

“Are you going somewhere, noona?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’ll be back before dinner, so let your sister know as well.”

“Okay... Sure.”

Ra-Eun stormed out of the house. Yi-Jun slightly shrugged in confusion as he continuously stared at the closed front door.

“I wonder if something bad has happened to her lately?”

***

A woman was sitting alone in a cafe waiting for someone. It was Na Gyu-Rin. She fixed her glasses and waved her hand as soon as she saw Ra-Eun entering the cafe.

Gyu-Rin softly giggled when she saw Ra-Eun in sunglasses.

“Even if you hide your face, your enormous celebrity aura gives your identity away.”

Ra-Eun actually had no idea what celebrity aura was since far too much time had passed since the time when she used to look at celebrities in an ordinary person’s perspective.

“So, what’s this meeting about?” Gyu-Rin asked.

She had been more dubious than happy when she had gotten a message from Ra-Eun to meet, since whenever Ra-Eun asked to meet first, it was usually about...

“Something’s on your mind, isn’t there?”

Ra-Eun could only nod in affirmation at Gyu-Rin’s pinpoint deduction. It was honestly better for Ra-Eun that Gyu-Rin had realized her intentions since the mood to talk about her worries had been established naturally.

“What is it?” Gyu-Rin asked.

She was curious about why Ra-Eun had asked to meet her instead of Choi Ro-Mi or Seo Yi-Seo.

Ra-Eun gave it to her straight, “How does it feel to kiss a man?”

Gyu-Rin spat a bit of her americano. She had noticed that Ra-Eun had something on her mind, but had never expected it to be about something like this.

“Ra-Eun, Did you...” Gyu-Rin’s eyes turned sharper. “Get a boyfriend?”

Ra-Eun frantically shook her head in denial.

“No, not at all.”

“Then why are you asking a question like that? You’ve never kissed a male actor in your drama or film shoots?”

Gyu-Rin had expected Ra-Eun to have done it at least once.

“No, never,” Ra-Eun answered.

“Really? Hmm... Come to think of it, I’ve never heard about you having done a kiss scene.”

It made sense that Ra-Eun hadn’t, since her pledge to do it if her film reached ten million in total attendance had been such a huge deal.

“Are you asking me so you can prepare for your kiss scene?”

“Well... You could say that.”

Ra-Eun lied for the sake of herself since she thought that it would be a bit much to tell Gyu-Rin everything that had happened during her stage performance with Je-Woon. After all, it was not something she should be going around telling people.

“You’ve kissed Yeong-Gyo, right? You guys have been dating for a while,” Ra-Eun asked.

“Well...”

Gyu-Rin’s face turned instantly red. She was the only one among their four-member friend group who currently had a boyfriend, which was why Ra-Eun had chosen her. Gyu-Rin sighed and answered Ra-Eun’s original question while suppressing her embarrassment.

“When you kiss the person you like, it feels... Good. You feel happy.”

“And you feel that way when you kiss Yeong-Gyo?”

“...Why does it feel like I’m being interrogated?”

It felt like she was getting questioned by a detective; the only thing that was different was their location.

“But most kisses are done with the person that you like, aren’t they? I’m sure that’s not the case for every kiss, but if it’s under the pretext of it being with the person that you like, then I think that you would feel happy. You feel like you’re being loved by that man,” Gyu-Rin expressed.

“Hmm...”

It was obvious for one to think that one kissed someone because they liked that person. In that case, Ra-Eun wondered if Je-Woon had also felt that way about her during the stage performance incident.

“This is about my friend.”

As soon as Ra-Eun said that, Gyu-Rin instantly realized that it was about Ra-Eun herself.

“She was performing on stage with her sunbae, but then their eyes met. How do you think she would feel if that sunbae suddenly tried to kiss her?”

“I wonder. A kiss in the heat of the moment isn’t a bad thing as long as you two are both fond of each other. But the most important thing is definitely how you feel about it.”

“I told you, it’s about my friend.”

Ra-Eun tried to deny it, but Gyu-Rin was 100% sure that Ra-Eun was talking about herself, and she even more or less knew the identity of the sunbae that Ra-Eun was referring to.

“How about you first try finding out why the other person did that? You might have been mistaken since you’d been so focused on the performance, or maybe that sunbae was actually trying to kiss you but stopped midway. I don’t think it’s too late to think about it after finding that out.”

“Like I said...”

“Okay, fine. I’ll rephrase. Your friend, not you.”

Gyu-Rin’s advice left Ra-Eun with a lot to think about. She was exactly right; Ra-Eun first needed to find out whether Je-Woon’s actions had been a mistake or on purpose.

***

It had been two weeks since Je-Woon’s solo album had been released. His title track

?Love & Peace

had not dropped from the top spot ever since its release. Not just that, it had been popular enough globally to place in the top 50 of the Billboard charts. The song aside, Je-Woon’s stage performance with Ra-Eun had also become a hot topic among the fans.

Je-Woon and Ra-Eun had appeared on a radio show together, and gave their attention to the host.

“We’ve received tons of questions from our listeners. Listener #9382 says,

‘Your solo track was amazing, Je-Woon~’

. Listener #3362 says,

‘There’s no couple more perfect than Je-Woon and Kang Ra-Eun!’

, while sending tons of hearts.”

The two of them were receiving tons of attention to the point that it was surprising that there had not been a dating scandal regarding them.

“I watched the stage performance as well. About the choreography right before your ending pose where you both looked into each other’s eyes, you two were awfully close. Was that intentional?”

Ra-Eun’s ears perked up from the host’s question. That had been the exact question that she had wanted to ask Je-Woon. Je-Woon laughed in embarrassment and nodded.

“Yes, but we’d made a slight error in our step, so we ended up being a lot closer than what we’d been during our rehearsal. I think that’s why there have been tons of fans misunderstanding that there had been a kiss scene planned.”

“Oh, so it was unintentional.”

“Yes. It was simply a mistake.”

A mistake. Hearing that, all the tension left Ra-Eun’s body. She felt like an idiot for overthinking things by herself for a whole week.

‘Why do I feel like I’ve lost?’

She felt like she had been wronged.

***

“Thank you very much.”

After the radio recording had finished, Ra-Eun congratulated the staff members on their hard work. As she was about to congratulate Je-Woon as well...

“Ra-Eun. Could we talk in private for a second?”

“Now?”

“Yeah. It’ll only take a second.”

Ra-Eun agreed and followed Je-Woon after asking Shin Yu-Bin to wait for a minute. Je-Woon took her to a deserted location.

He then expressed, “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for all of a sudden, sunbae?”

Ra-Eun couldn’t understand what the apology was for.

“To be honest, I lied to you.”

“Lied about what?”

“My attempt to kiss you on stage actually wasn’t a mistake. I wanted to kiss you right then and there.”

Ra-Eun had gotten goosebumps along with the truth.