177 The Scary, Nivritti
Kyung-Soo entered right after Nivritti. Everyone shouted at Kyung-Soo for being an idiot. They only knew what Young-Chul told them. What was the reality, only Nivritti and Kyung-Soo knew. Every time he would see her limping, he would curse himself.
Him-Chan came running towards Nivritti and lifted her in his arms. Kyung-Soo’s heart stopped immediately. Just a few minutes ago, she was in his arms and because of one mistake, he lost her. Him-Chan’s arms touching her back and her thighs were causing Kyung-Soo’s heart to ache.
He knew that Him-Chan had a crush on her. But he too had a crush on her. In fact, his feelings were greater than a crush. He had started liking her or maybe loving her, he was not sure. He knew that she had shut the door to her heart, locked it with multiple keys and thrown every one of them in the deepest lake she could find.
Now, he had to find all the keys one by one and slowly open up her heart. Only then he would be able to enter inside. Only then she would accept him. But for now, all he could do was get jealous after seeing her get cosy with other men. Although in his heart he knew that she would never get cosy with any men.
He wanted to kill that asshole who broke her heart but at the same time, he wanted to thank him for going out of her life. What he did was bad, but her life was getting better without him in it.
“JH!” shouted Nivritti.
“It’s just a few steps. Calm down!” said Him-Chan. He reached the benches and placed Nivritti softly on one of them. “She is not all heavy, Hyung. Why did you say that?” he scolded Kyung-Soo.
But Kyung-Soo was thinking about only one thing, Him-Chan touched his Nivritti. “You should not touch a woman without her consent,” shouted Kyung-Soo.
“And you should never call a woman heavy. Moreover, I told her that I was going to carry her,” rebuked Him-Chan.
.....
“But you didn’t wait for her permission,” snapped Kyung-Soo.
“Enough!” yelled Nivritti. The dance hall fell silent. Everyone looked at one another. “Jae! Let’s start our work.”
Jung-Hwa came close to all his brothers and mumbled, “what did you do to her, Hyung? She is extremely angry. You know she gets scary when she gets angry.”
“As Johan said, I am an idiot!” replied Kyung-Soo. “I should not have opened my mouth.”
“Annyeonghaseyo, everyone!” greeted Dae as soon as he entered.
“Annyeonghaseyo!” everyone greeted him back.
“Oh, my girls are here!” Dae commented and smiled at both the girls. “I was shocked when Choi-ssi told me that you will be arriving directly here. Why the sudden change?”
“She hurt her leg and couldn’t walk so we…,” Young-Chul started explaining.
But Nivritti interrupted in between, “so I asked them where we should come, to the office or the dance hall. They replied dance hall and Jae brought me here. That way I would have to walk less.” She looked at Young-Chul and stealthily shook her head in no gesturing for him to no say another word or tell Dae about anything.
If he would tell Dae that they were frequent visitors to her home, he could make a big deal of it and everyone in the office would again start gossiping, as they always did.
“Oh my! Show me. What happened?” shouted Dae and ran to Nivritti. He knelt down on one leg and tried to grab Nivritti’s leg.
“No, no, please, you are elder, please don’t touch my feet,” shouted Nivritti and abruptly stood up. She flinched in pain as she put pressure on her toe and stumbled due to the pain. Him-Chan being closest to her immediately grabbed her shoulders from behind and stopped her from falling.
“Are you okay?” asked Him-Chan. Nivritti had her eyes closed and she just nodded at him and moved away from him. Slowly she sat back on the bench.
“Sorry! I caused you more pain,” apologised Dae.
“It’s okay, Mr. Seong!” said Nivritti.
“Why do you call me, Mr. Seong? I am not that old. I too can become your friend,” pouted Dae.
“Of course. What would you like me to call you?” smiled Nivritti.
“You can call me by my name. Just call me, Dae. All of you, call me, Dae,” he looked at everyone.
“Yes, Dae,” all shouted at once.
“What has gotten into him? He never acted this way,” commented Jung-Hwa.
“Maybe he is drunk, or he hit his head in the morning,” laughed Thae.
“Shut up, both of you,” whispered Korain.
“Well, how come you came with Jae?” asked Dae.
“Oh, she spent her weekend with me,” replied Nivritti.
“Ohh nice! What did you guys do?” asked Dae.
“Um… Oppa, she and I went to the movies and enjoyed ourselves a lot. We again had a movie marathon at her home. It was so much fun,” Jae-Hwa was grinning from ear to ear.
The moment Kyung-Soo heard that Nivritti saw movies with Jae-Geun his face dropped with sadness. He never did anything with her and here was Jae-Geun, he went to shopping with her, movies with her, they always spent weekends together. All he could do was think about her and follow her in hiding.
“So, you guys did not work this weekend, huh?” scolded Dae, mischievously.
“Just for a day, we had girl’s movie night but then yesterday whole day we kept working,” replied Jae-Hwa.
“Your brother was in Girl’s night?” asked Kyung-Soo, confused.
“What?” asked Jae-Hwa.
“You said you went to the movies with your brother and then saw more movies at her house. Your brother saw movies at her house too?” explained Kyung-Soo.
“No, we went to the theatre and then he dropped us at her house, and he left,” replied Jae-Hwa.
“Oh, that way!” nodded Kyung-Soo.
“Why? Boys can watch movies with girls? Is a chick flick too much for a man? Will that hurt your brain?” scolded Nivritti.
“I… I… didn’t mean that. No, no, I will never mean that,” protested Kyung-Soo.
“Shit, Hyung! You are dead,” said Jeong-Eun in a sing-song tone.
“Good God, man! Just keep your mouth shut. Let them work. Everyone, warm up,” ordered Korain.
“Yes, Hyung!” everyone nodded and started stretching.
Dae again sat next to Jae-Hwa, and all started working on their respective work. Nivritti was busy reading scripts when her phone chimed. She looked at her phone. There was a message from Chung-Ho.
“How are you? King told me about your leg. Is that okay?”
She realised that Chung-Ho knew everything. Everything about Young-Chul, his condition, his hospitalization, their visit to her house and her injury. It meant that he was one of the members of the inner circle of ASD.
She smiled at his message and replied, “I am fine, and my leg is fine too. Thank you for asking.”
How’s work? Is Jae-Hwa doing a good job? Seong-ssi is not giving you trouble, is he?
Both are doing fine work. Don’t worry. We have you with us.
Always. Keep up the good work.
Nivritti smiled and placed her phone back on the table. She glanced at the mirror in front of her and saw Kyung-Soo stretching his legs. She didn’t want to feel anything, but all the emotions flooded her brain at once.
She was angry at him for saying that he liked her. She was furious at him for liking her. She was sad that he liked a damaged person like her. She was guilt-ridden as now she will have to reject him when she didn’t want to do that. She liked when he would be close to him but at the same time was scared as hell to again open her heart. She didn’t want to face another heartbreak. She didn’t want to feel dejected again.
She shook her head to get rid of all her thoughts and concentrated on her work.
A few minutes passed and the door opened. The choreographer of ASD arrived with a huge grin on his face.
“Annyeonghaseyo, everyone! Please greet your backup dancers for today,” announced the choreographer and opened the door completely allowing the backup dancers to enter.
The whole hall was filled with giggles and laughter. Almost twenty kids stormed inside the dance hall with sweet smiles on their faces.
“Woah, kids!” smiled Jae-Hwa.
Looking at their cute faces, Nivritti smiled too. Kyung-Soo noticed that and finally breathed with ease. If she was smiling with a twinkle in her eyes, it meant that her anger was gone.
All the kids greeted the members of ASD with different smiles on their faces. Some had a broad smile, some had a shy smile and some had a loud smile. The whole environment was jolly and sweet.
The choreographer instructed everyone to take their position and the practice started. Nivritti looked at the kids in the mirror and counted the number of kids. She opened her phone and looked for packets of chocolates for every kid in the hall.
When she was happy with her choice of chocolate, she ordered thirty packets of chocolates and went back to her work.