Page 49 of Teach Me K-Pop

“And company? That feels rude,” Savannah says, hopping up on the counter where I normally sit.

’Sav. Alita. Always a pleasure to see you as well.” I look at Harper, who is practically vibrating where she’s standing. “I’m waiting…”

“OHMYGODITWASTHEBESTNIGHTOFMYLIFE!” she blurts, thrusting her phone toward my face, where I can kind of catch a blurry shot of Lux smiling.

“Wow! You must have had great seats!” I smile at the identical dreamy expressions they all adopt as they nod in unison. “So, tell me everything.”

The three of them start talking at once, and I can only catch snippets of any of the sentences, mainly just the members’ names.

“Halt. Stop. Whoa.” I put my hand up to shush them. “I want to hear it all, but I’m gonna need you to pace yourselves. I cannot listen as fast as you all can talk over each other.”

“We were on the floor! They were RIGHT. THERE. Like, they could see us. Lux was totally smilingat mein the picture.” Harper gazes at her phone again and I can tell that we’ve lost her for the time being.

Alita grabs Savannah’s arm, like she needs the support to tell me, “We almostalmostgot sweat on by Lalo.”

“We wereso close,” Savannah laments. “The row in front of us was so lucky.”

“Uh, I’m sorry? I guess? I don’t really know how to respond to that,” I say, wrinkling my nose a little, as though I don’t see the appeal of a member of RYSING sweating on me.

“‘Sorry’ is the right answer. If I can’t wear his hands as a necklace, at least he can sweat on me,” Alita states very casually, as my jaw drops.

Savannah swats at her. “Not in front of Mr. K!”

She crosses her arms, all sass. “I’m just being honest.”

“There is such a thing as too much honesty. And some stuff you probably really shouldn’t share with a teacher,” I inform them. “That’s one of them.”

“Fine.”

“Thank you.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true, though,” Alita mumbles under her breath, then turns her attention to Harper. “Hey. Come back.” She looks at me and rolls her eyes. “She’s been doing this since the concert.”

“OH! OH! OH!” Savannah shouts out of nowhere. “We totally saw someone that looked like you at the show, Mr. K!”

Aw, shit. How would that have even been possible? I thought I was pretty well hidden, but maybe they saw me outside before I went into the green room?

I raise an eyebrow, attempting to suggest that’s crazy. “I’ve been told I look like a dad these days, so I’m sure you saw several guys there who resembled me.”

Harper seems to blink back to the present and quickly flips through a few more photos, too quickly for me to see much. “Slow down! You’re supposed to be telling me about these.”

“Mine aren’t that good. I was just glad I caught a couple of Lux. There was a girl in front of us, though; we found her online. She got so many good shots, but they’re mainly of Nikko.”

I perk up immediately at the mention of his name and try to hide my reaction by ducking behind my mug of coffee.

Harper pulls up the girl’s account on social media and starts scrolling. “He was flirting with her so hard the whole time. One of her captions made it sound like she got to hook up with him after the show or something. It wouldn’t surprise me if she did.”

I take a sip at exactly the wrong time, choking at the idea of Nikko meeting up with some girl after one of the concerts. “Went down the wrong way,” I sputter, hoping that’s a reasonable enough explanation.

Savannah frowns at me. “Are you okay? Your face is all red.”

I give her a thumbs up, trying to cough enough to calm down. “Yep. All good.”

Harper hands her phone to me, so I can look at the extensive gallery of pictures from someone with the username ofmrsniknikchoi. Despite the incredibly cringey and misguided handle, the photos are pretty phenomenal. But it’s easy for me to see that the photos are of Nikko the idol. That’s not my Nikko. The vaguely flirty look in his eyes isn’t the same, and his smile is all wrong.

My mind immediately goes back to all the times I saw that smile, up close and personal, felt it against my lips. I swear that I’ve thought of nothing but him since I left his room four days ago. We’ve talked and texted, but it’s not the same now.

It’s not enough.

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