Page 33 of A World Apart
“Don’t worry about it. Sort them out and then you might as well take off, there’s no point you starting anything else today,” Jeremy said.
“Alright, thanks, boss,” I said, knowing full well that I’d only be hanging out with Becka until she finished anyway.
With that, I hustled to the lounge to get started on some refreshments. Becka had showed me how this went on my first day, just in case I was ever asked to do it. Normally, it would be someone from her office, but you never knew and it wasn’t complicated. I brewed a fresh pot of coffee and piled everything I needed onto a large tray; mugs, spoons, one container of milk, individual sachets of sugar and some napkins. I also grabbed some water bottles out of the fridge and waited for the pot to finish brewing. Once it was done, I grabbed one of the mugs and poured coffee into it, topping it up with frothy milk and a shot of caramel syrup.
Once done, I picked up the tray and carefully made my way to the conference room. I had to push the door open with my back and I tried my best not to clatter the tray too loudly. From the screen on the wall and the mounted speakers, I could hear other people speaking, the meeting having obviously already begun. I didn’t look up, but I could hear the other party speaking very fast Korean.
As I walked around the room to the other side where there was a table to set out hospitality items, I could hear someone in the room speaking quietly, it sounded like there was someone translating into English.
Once I slid the tray onto the table, I chanced a look round and saw the man I wasn’t familiar with leaning in closely to Trevor Kyle, presumably translating. Looking back round, my eyes naturally snagged on the big screen. I inhaled sharply and looked away immediately, my hands tightening on the tray. There, on the big screen in full, sharp definition were the other four members of GVibes: Park Minjae, the eldest of the group and the leader, part of the vocal line with Jihoon, Kim Seokmin, the third vocalist and also the youngest of the group, Choi Woojin, thegroup’s best rapper and lastly, Lee Sungmin, second rapper and also the best dancer of GVibes, except for maybe Jihoon.
I listened to Minjae speaking, the voice so familiar to me, feeling so surreal I had to really fight to keep from giggling at the absurdity of my life right now.
I took a deep breath and resolved to focus on my task. I grabbed the water bottles and ducking my head down, hurried round the table, putting them to the right-hand side of each person sitting there, not lingering before heading back to the table, where I grabbed the coffee I’d specially made for Jihoon, and two little packets of sugar. I carefully placed the mug and the sugar packets on his left.
“Thank you,” he whispered, lifting his eyes to smile ever-so-slightly at me. I returned it with a small smile of my own, before turning to Youngsoo and quietly asking if he’d like a coffee. I repeated this with everyone else and bustled away to pour coffee into mugs, adding milk when it was wanted and adding spoons, napkins and sugar packets to each person in turn before I was done.
I’d done a very commendable job of pretending my favourite band in the world weren’t live on a screen just a couple of meters away, weren’t able to see me as the camera captured the full width and breadth of this room.
I also did an amazing job of drawing absolutely no attention to myself, and as I silently slipped out of the room, I mentally high-fived myself on not falling over, not spilling coffee on anyone, not knocking anything over or otherwise similarly making a spectacle of myself.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod,” I panted, practically galloping down the corridor and hot stepping into the office space Becka shared, earning me several looks.
“Babes, what?” Becka said, looking up at me in surprise, pushing aside her laptop.
I low-key loved it when she dropped everything for me, and even in the midst of my fan-girl-freakout, I felt a warm glow of love for her.
“I just saw GVibes! All of them!” I dramatically flung myself into the chair opposite her desk like it was a fainting couch, earning me a couple of laughs from the other people on her team.
“What?” Becka said, frowning, “Are they here? We didn’t know about that, did we?” She directed this to Celine, a couple desks away, who looked up like a meerkat scenting danger.
“Here? No!” Immediately she shoved her glasses up her nose and started squinting at her computer.
“No, no!” I say quickly, waving my hands around for emphasis. “They’re on the video conferencing screen, they’re in the conference room right now. TK made me make drinks for the room.”
“Oh God, don’t do that to me,” Celine slumped back into her chair, heaving a sigh of relief.
“Sorry Celine,” Becka and I chorused, and then giggled.
“Holy hell, that was so wild!” The grin stretching across my face felt manic.
“While that is very cool, and I am happy for you,” Becka began, “I’m confused as to why this seems like a much bigger deal to you, when you’ve been in physical contact with the idol for days.”
Celine sharply looked up, the laser focus of her glare was almost a tactile feeling and Becka quickly looked over to reassure her.
“Stand down, Celine, figure-of-speech, I just mean that he’s been here, in the building and we’ve seen him walking around. She has not, I repeat, not touched the idol.”
Mostly true, I thought to myself, a small smile teasing the corners of my lips.
“She better not have,” Celine muttered darkly, pushing her glasses higher up her nose and narrowing her eyes at me. I held my hands up in silent surrender, and she turned back to her laptop.
Becka and I shared a grin. “You done for the day?” she asked.
“Yeah, Jeremy said I might as well finish early, so here I am, riding high and fancy free.” She rolled her eyes at me but smiled.
“Alright, I’m nearly done and then we’ll head out, okay?” Understanding that she needed some time to concentrate on her task, I got up and said, “I’ll go and get my stuff out of my locker and meet you by the lifts?”
“Sure,” Becka said, waving a hand at me but having already gone back to staring at her laptop.
