Jiho

I watched the water flying at me in horror. My shirt—my $500 St. Laurent T-shirt!—was drenched instantly, and all I could do was stand, gawking like a fish while water dripped all over the marbled floor.

There was a stunned silence for a beat or two, then Doyoon burst out into hyena-like cackles, his entire body shaking from the force of his laughs.

“Hyung, it looks like you went for a swim!” he blabbered, wiping a single tear from his eye.

I glared at the barista, who was still standing there, frozen, with the empty glass in her hand. Horror and triumph mixed on her face, her pretty mouth shaping itself into a little “o” of disbelief.

A hot, coiling snake of rage roared up inside me, and everything turned red. How dare this girl throw water on me? Who did she think she was?

Curse words spilled from my tongue like a flood. Distantly, I could hear someone yelling, “Barista-sekiya! You piece of shit! Dol-a-ee! You rock-headed idiot!” The barrage of insults only stopped when a hand slapped itself over my mouth.

Doyoon.

“We better get going,” He sounded strained, his normal, affable expression pinched in stress.

I shook his hand off with a growl, muttering, “If you touch me again, I’ll kill you.”

He took two steps back with both hands up in the air and I took a deep, cleansing breath before forcing myself to face the insolent barista.

“Thanks for nothing,” I snapped, completely ignoring her coworker who’d turned white and was babbling apologies behind her. Doyoon grabbed my arm and nearly dragged me out the door.

Before the door closed, I caught one last look at the barista, at the proud set of her shoulders, and her delicate olive skin flushed red. Her eyes were still defiant in the face of the furious, bald giant that towered over her. Something inside of me twinged.

Then, the door shut behind me.

***

Hana

Christian didn’t even wait for the two assholes to leave before pulling me behind the espresso machine, virtually shoving me into a corner where the other customers wouldn’t be able to see him give me the ass whooping of the century. His voice shook from the effort it took to keep it down.

“Hana Kyung, what did I tell you literally five minutes ago?”

“You saw what happened out there! He was holding up the line and then he started insulting me—”

“Hana. What. Did. I. Tell. You?”

I sucked in a breath, “That the customer is always right.”

Christian slapped the chrome side of the espresso machine with a loud thud. I flinched. “The customer is always right. Always. And that makes you wrong. What in the hell were you thinking, throwing water on someone like that?”

“I guess I wasn’t thinking at all. I’m...sorry.” I managed to push out an apology through my clenched teeth. Christian stooped down, cupping one ear out toward me.

“What was that?”

“Sorry. I’m sorry!” I burst out, although it killed a little part inside of me to say it. I just had to get through crap like this for my five-year plan… “I went overboard. I shouldn’t have done it, and I promise, it’ll never happen again.”

“You bet your ass it won’t. You’re fired.”

Christian drew out the “f,” savoring each syllable, with his mouth curved up in the closest semblance of a smile I’d ever seen on his brutish face. I gasped, frantically clutching at his sleeve. He shook me off with a disgusted look.

“B-but I’ve always been on time, every day for the past year, and aside from this incident I haven’t made any trouble—”

Christian scoffed, cutting me off, “You? No trouble? Don’t kid yourself. Honestly, I should have fired you months ago, but I kept giving you chances out of the kindness of my heart,” he said. “Save your breath and leave with some dignity. I’ll send you your last paycheck in the mail, so don’t even think about coming back. Ever.”

Before I could say another word he was gone, probably back into his office cave to gleefully cross my name out from next week’s schedule.

Fine. If he was going to be an ass, so would I. I untied my barista apron and threw it on the ground, stomping on it a bit for good measure. I was just turning to the expensive coffee beans that Christian had special ordered from an exotic village in Colombia when Laura ran up to me, breathless.

“Ohmigod, Hana, do you know who you just threw water on?”

“No, and I don’t want to know,” I said. “Christian just fired me, Laura. I’ve got other things to worry about.”

“What? No…he couldn’t have!” Her hands flew to her mouth, but the shock seemed a little too exaggerated to be real.

I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t seem that surprised.”

“I mean—you just threw water over Jiho! Jiho from CNTR!” The words came out in a rush between her pants of excitement. I’d thrown water on a K-pop star?

I waited for something to hit me—some kind of fear, or horror, or even pride that I’d shown up an arrogant celebrity—but nothing came but a kind of bone-deep weariness. Rent’s due, I thought distantly. And now I didn’t know how I was going to pay up.

“I’ve got to go, Laura.” I picked my bag up off the floor and turned my back on Laura and Christian and the coffee shop from hell, the bell ringing out a farewell chime as I strode off into the concrete jungle.

***

Jiho

People have this glamorous idea in their heads of what show business is like. They think that stars are pampered every minute of their lives, showered with attention from dedicated assistants and luxurious gifts from admirers. And sometimes they’re right.

But behind every seemingly flawless performance, every pitch-perfect note, were endless hours of practice. CNTR had paid for our fame, pound for pound, in blood, sweat, and tears.

I scanned all the different performers who were warming up before it was their turn to rehearse on the big stage. Some I recognized from the posters that were hanging on my childhood bedroom wall, while others, like us, had risen through the ranks only a short time ago. The only thing that we had in common was that everyone was instantly recognizable. All of us famous in some way. All of us A-listers.

ZT watched the movement on the stage, his brown hair catching the light. “This is the VMA’s.” His eyes were wide. “What the hell are we doing here, man?” he whispered to me.

I punched his shoulder lightly. “Don’t you start talking like that. They wouldn’t have let us in if we didn’t deserve to be here.”

The show’s producer stuck his head into our dressing room and held up five fingers. Five minutes until our turn on the big stage.

“We’re going after Ariana Grande?” ZT sounded terrified. The producer winked, giving us a thumbs up before disappearing into the whirl of stagehands prepping the stage for our set.

“Okay guys!” I clapped my hands. All four heads turned to me. “You heard the man. I say we run through ‘Can’t Catch Me’ one more time—”

LEO groaned. “We’ve practiced that one a million times, hyung. One more time isn’t going to change anything at this point.”

ZT nodded, and LEO shot me a cocky grin at his little insubordination. He did have a point though—we did know every song backward and forward, and maybe it’d be good to let the guys have a bit of a break so we could be fresh. I sighed, then held up my hands. Fine.

“Thank you, thank you very much,” LEO purred in his best Elvis impression, gyrating his hips and slicking back his hair just like The King.

“Wait, are those my sunglasses?” ZT pointed to the pair of Gucci sunnies perched on LEO’s nose.

“No,” LEO said, too quickly.

I tuned out the rest of their squabble to concentrate on the new lyrics for our next album instead. Every time I thought I was onto something, though, the barista’s angry, accusing eyes floated in front of me, completely interrupting my train of thought.

“Distracted?”

“Get out of here Doyoon. I’m busy,” I snapped, although there was no real fire behind it. Doyoon raised his brow and gestured toward my notebook, where I’d absentmindedly sketched out a face with a vague resemblance to Coffee Shop Girl. One look at Doyoon and I knew he was thinking the same thing.

“You know,” he started thoughtfully, tapping the notebook, “You seem a little hung up on that gi—that incident.”

“No way, man.” The girl seemed to look at me skeptically from the page, You sure about that, buddy?

“You shouldn’t have yelled at her like that. Hate to admit it, hyung, but you were acting like those reality show celebs, the ones that treat people like dirt.”

“Drama queen much, Doyoon? It really wasn’t that big of a deal.”

He shook his head, his eyes sad. “There was a time when you never would have yelled at someone the way you just yelled at that girl. You’re a good guy Jiho, but I think you forget that sometimes.”

A knot tightened deep in my core—regret? Guilt?—and I slammed my notebook shut.

“You know what? Some things change, Doyoon, in case you haven’t noticed,” I snarled, gesturing around at the beautiful people, the stagehands scurrying about. Doyoon’s face hardened.

“Well, I hope I never become like you,” he said. “I’ll never treat people the way you do, as if they’re garbage.”

Movement caught the corner of my eye and we both turned to see Shin waving his hands at us frantically from the door, motioning toward the waiting show producer.

“Whatever, man. It’s time to go,” I brushed past Doyoon, accidentally-on-purpose knocking him out of the way. All five of us headed to the awaiting stage, the silence between us thick with nerves. Even LEO was quiet, a feat I’d once thought impossible. Shin was just pulling back the curtain when—

“Wait!” Junghoon sprinted toward us from the end of the hall, flashing his “MANAGER” badge at any bewildered assistants that tried to stop him. He brandished a phone in front of him like it was an active bomb.

“What is it?” Shin stepped toward him, but our manager blew past, nearly slapping me in the face with his phone.

“Calm down!” I tried to back away, but Junghoon grabbed me before I could move any farther.

“You!” he hissed, pushing play on the video before shoving the screen in front of me. “You endless pain in my ass.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, but he shushed me and gestured toward the video where a miniature version of Coffee Shop Girl was splashing a very tiny, very angry Jiho. My heart sunk to the bottom of my stomach.

“Oh.” The tiny backstage area was filled with the tinny recording of my outburst and the other members looked at me in horror. Shibal. Dol-a-ee. Doyoon was right—it had been way worse than I’d thought.

“Oh? Oh? Is that all you have to say for yourself?” Our manager demanded, an angry god to my repentant sinner. “How are we going to explain this?!”