To Kiss An Idol

181 The Uncomfortable Car Ride

Now it was everyone’s turn to leave for their home.

“Jae! You should call a cab,” suggested Nivritti.

“Oh yeah, right!” replied Jae-Hwa.

“Why cab? If you don’t have your car, I can drop you off,” suggested Dae.

“No, no, Seong-ssi, I will be fine,” replied Jae-Hwa.

“Come on, Jae! I told you to call me Dae. And it will be no trouble. You have so many bags, let me help,” offered Dae.

“Fine, Dae,” smiled Jae-Hwa.

“Let’s go, Jae, Ritti, I will drop you,” suddenly Young-Chul shouted from the end of the dance hall.

“It’s fine Young. I will drop Jae. You can take Ritti with you,” replied Dae.

.....

“Okay, Dae,” Young-Chul raised his thumb at him and smiled.

“See you tomorrow!” Nivritti bid them goodbye and stood up with her bag.

“Give me that,” said Jung-Hwa, abruptly.

“Where do you come from?” asked Nivritti, shocked.

“I am driving you with MY hyung,” smiled Jung-Hwa. Nivritti too smiled at his cute expression. She waved at Jae-Hwa and slowly started walking out of the room.

“JJ! Instead of carrying the bag, carry her, otherwise we will reach home tomorrow,” Young-Chul shook his head in disbelief.

“What?” shouted Nivritti, Kyung-Soo, and Him-Chan immediately. “No, no, don’t. stop treating me like a kid,” she shouted. “I am not going anywhere with you,” she pouted.

“Okay, okay, fine, walk like a sloth,” said Jung-Hwa. Kyung-Soo and Him-Chan sighed with relief.

Jung-Hwa drove the car with Young-Chul sitting next to him and Nivritti in the back seat.

“Make sure to take medicine tonight,” ordered Jung-Hwa.

“Yes, I know,” said Nivritti. “MY! When is your next session?”

“I have sessions on every Wednesday and Thursday. So, the day after tomorrow,” he replied.

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“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I am good. I am trying to do everything they say, and I have your messages to keep me company,” he turned around and smiled at her.

“You guys message every day?” asked Jung-Hwa shocked.

“No! I do. He never replies,” she answered.

“That’s what I thought. I was about to get a heart attack, phew!” sighed Jung-Hwa.

“What??” laughed Nivritti.

“Ohh! He never replies to anyone. If it’s urgent he will give you a call but never replies,” replied Jung-Hwa.

“But you used to attend script department meetings. How did you communicate with CH?” asked Nivritti.

“He knows me, he just messages me with the time and date, and I arrive at the mentioned time. Simple!” replied Young-Chul.

“Why do you have a phone?” teased Nivritti.

“Good question!” laughed Jung-Hwa.

“But… um… you are active on social media. You have accounts on numerous apps, and you post regularly,” commented Nivritti.

“Oh, you got it all wrong. He never posts. Our PR team maintains his social media, they post everything,” replied Jung-Hwa.

“Woah! Really!!” Nivritti was shocked.

“Yes,” replied Young-Chul.

“Ritti! Give me your IDs. Let’s follow each other on social media apps,” said Jung-Hwa.

Nivritti looked uncomfortable. “Um… I don’t have accounts on any social media,” she replied.

“What?” shouted both Young-Chul and Jung-Hwa. She looked at Young-Chul who was looking at her and shrugged her shoulders. Jung-Hwa who was driving kept glancing at her in the rear view mirror.

“Why?” asked Young-Chul.

Nivritti couldn’t tell them the real reason. The real reason was, Ritvik, who kept stalking her on her social media, who kept liking her every post, who kept finding her everywhere no matter where she went or how many houses she changed, no matter how many times she blocked him, he would pop-up after making a new account.

To hide from him, she deleted every account on every social media and almost cut herself from the land of the internet.

“Um… you know my job has me staring at a screen 24×7, just reading, and reading and writing. First of all, I do not have time to maintain my accounts and second, that would increase my screen time. I don’t want to wear glasses when I grow old,” she replied, awkwardly. She knew she was lying but she had no other options. “I only have accounts on messaging apps.”

“Then let’s make a group chat of us and the Rencontre team,” suggested Jung-Hwa.

“No!” shouted Nivritti.

“What? Why?” asked Young-Chul.

“Rencontre team has Mr. Seong too. He does not know a lot about what happened between us, the restaurant drama, MY’s health issues. He does not know that you guys come to my house…” said Nivritti.

“…Which was my house,” Young-Chul completed her sentence.

“Right! I don’t think we should include him,” said Nivritti.

“Fine, then let’s leave him. We all and you and Jae, let’s make a group,” giggled Jung-Hwa.

“Let’s add CH too. I hope he knows everything. He knows about the restaurant. Does he know about you, MY?” asked Nivritti.

“Yeah, he knows. He even came to visit me. He is one of the people who have been with us since the start. He alone used to write ideas and scripts for us and then we grew and now he is head of that department. We all like family. He knows everything about us, and we make a point to tell him,” explained Young-Chul.

“Really? Wow!” smiled Nivritti.

Finally, they reached Nivritti’s house and Young-Chul grabbed her bags.

“Let me carry it,” complained Nivritti.

“Why do you want to put more pressure on your leg?” scolded Young-Chul.

“Sorry!” she started walking towards the stairs.

Jung-Hwa came out of nowhere and swept her off her feet. Within seconds she was in his arms.

“What… what are you doing? Put me down!!!” she shouted.

“Do you want to come to the office tomorrow?” asked Jung-Hwa.

“Yes!” replied Nivritti.

“Then keep your mouth shut and let me carry you,” rebuked Jung-Hwa.

“Excuse me! Did you shout at me?” she was taken aback.

“Yaaa! Screaming is not your property. Other people can scream too,” replied Jung-Hwa and started climbing the stairs.

“But you guys don’t have your mask on,” complained Nivritti.

“We will be gone in a jiffy,” replied Young-Chul.

“Still, what if someone sees you?” cried Nivritti.

“No, no, keep talking loudly, that way you won’t attract any attention,” taunted Jung-Hwa.

“Sorry!” she said and shut up.

Jung-Hwa carried her all the way up to her house and placed her feet softly. She inserted her code in the keypad and opened the door.

“Thank you, guys, for everything,” she smiled awkwardly at them.

“If you keep thanking us, I will hit you on your head,” mocked Jung-Hwa.

“Woah! My dialogue is being used on me. Great!” and all three started laughing.

“We should leave,” said Young-Chul.

“Bye, see you tomorrow,” replied Nivritti.

“I will get permission from Choi-ssi and will make a group,” said Jung-Hwa.

“Okay!” Nivritti raised her thumb at him.

The moment they left she sat on the couch with a thud and softly placed her feet on the table. Her toe was tingling with pain. She made a point to remember taking her pain medicine tonight.

Meanwhile,

“Let’s go, Jae!” said Dae and grabbed her bags. Dae parked his car on a different level from ASD as that had VIP parking reserved for them with extra security and no one other than ASD members were allowed to park on their floor.

Dae placed her bag in the trunk of the car and made her sit next to him in the passenger seat. He started the car and came out of the parking lot.

.....

“Ritti is your good friend, right?” he initiated the conversation.

“Yeah!” smiled Jae-Hwa.

“I am envious that you have such a good friend, even though she is so new to our team. I have been working so long in this team, yet I don’t have such a good friend,” commented Dae.

“Don’t say that, now you are our friends too,” said Jae-Hwa.

He removed his hand from the steering wheel and placed it over her thighs. Jae-Hwa froze instantly at his gesture. With a smirk on his face, he patted her thighs and said, “thank you for that. I will make sure to become a good friend to you all.”

Jae-Hwa was in too much shock. She had no idea what to say or do. She wanted to jerk his hand away, but she was frozen with fear. His touch was making her uneasy. Her jaws were clenched, and she had no idea whether to cry or shout at him. He never touched her before, then why was he doing something like this?

He finally patted her thigh one more time and lifted his hand. “So, did you find any more plagiarised scripts?” But Jae-Hwa didn’t answer. She was still frozen in time. “Jae!” he shouted. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” gulped Jae-Hwa. “Did you say something?”

“I asked about the plagiarised scripts. Did you find any new ones?” he repeated.

“Um… yes, I found some new ones,” she replied.

“Oh! So Ritti’s idea didn’t work,” he commented.

“Well… we… can’t make people stop coying scripts. All we can do is ban them from posting again and participating again,” she replied.

“Right!” he smiled at her and dropped her at her home. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yes,” was all she could reply.

The moment she closed the car door, Dae saw a phone screen lit up inside his pocket. He took the phone out of his pocket and saw it was a video call. The display said “headache”.