231 The Barging In
Nivritti had to eat medicines three times a day. Pain, medicine and loss of blood, made her weak. She wanted to concentrate on her work, but all her body wanted to do was sleep. Soon, after dinner, which she took early as she was feeling sleepy, she messaged everyone ‘goodnight’ and retired early.
Jae-Hwa helped her to the bed and let her sleep. She worked for about an hour and then she too retired for the night.
It was around midnight when Nivritti woke up. She could hear Jae-Hwa snoring faintly. She needed to pee. She could see Jae-Hwa was soundly asleep, so she thought for a minute if she should disturb Jae-Hwa. But she needed help.
“Jae! Jae!” she said softly. But Jae-Hwa was too deep in her sleep. Nivritti groaned and placed her good foot on the ground. While hugging the sides of the bed she hopped towards the door. After bed, she kept leaning on the wall and made her way to the bathroom door.
She was about to move into the bathroom when she heard hurried footsteps outside her door. Her fear made the hair on her neck stand. Her mind went to Ritvik. Did he find her finally? Was he searching for her in the building? She relaxed for a minute after realising that he had no idea which apartment she lived in.
But then the unexpected happened. Her heart jumped out of her chest. Beep! Beep! Beep! One by one someone was inputting her code. She moved towards the door slowly to peep through the peephole, but it was difficult to hop and move close to the door.
Her mind went to Jae-Hwa sleeping inside. She only kept thinking about her. She had to save her. She had to wake her up. She wanted to shout and warn her. But before she could that with a final beep her door flung open.
Nivritti gasped and saw a dark figure come in. He swooped past her, opened her balcony door and ran outside. With the force that he swooped past, she tumbled and lost her balance. Before she could fall to the ground and hurt herself more, another person came in and grabbed her before she could fall.
Her heart skipped a beat when she realised the familiar touch. A second later a few other men came in whom she knew very well.
.....
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” shouted Jung-Hwa and finally the light came on. Everyone gasped as they saw Nivritti in Kyung-Soo’s arms. He had her lifted above the ground in his arms.
Nivritti looked at everyone and gulped with embarrassment. “Put me down,” she signalled Kyung-Soo. He softly placed her on the ground.
The very next second Manager Park came in running, breathing heavily shouting, “where are we?” he saw Nivritti and fell quiet.
“Who? What?” Jae-Hwa too came running with a pillow in her hand ready to hit someone. But the moment she saw ASD standing in front of her, she hid the pillow behind her. “What is happening?”
“Yeah, what is happening?” asked Nivritti. She suddenly realised that someone pressed the code of her door. She whispered to Kyung-Soo, “you need to stop entering my door code in front of everyone.”
“I didn’t enter the code,” replied Kyung-Soo.
“Excuse me!” exclaimed Nivritti.
“Where is Youngie?” shouted Korain.
Nivritti looked at him with an open mouth. She realised that the person who flew past her was Young-Chul. But why did he run to the balcony?
“Help me,” she said to Kyung-Soo, and she walked to the balcony door. She opened the door and saw Young-Chul standing close to the railing. She tilted her head and observed him closely.
“Youngie!” shouted Korain and wanted to go to the balcony but the door was blocked by Kyung-Soo and Nivritti.
“No, stop! Don’t shout, you will alarm him,” said Nivritti.
“What? He is standing so close to the railing,” yelled Korain.
“Get in, everyone, get in and no one will shout,” scolded Nivritti.
“What are you talking about?” asked Kyung-Soo.
“First, you guys need to tell me what happened?” asked Nivritti.
“No, we need to be with him. He might… he might…” Korain was unable to complete his sentence.
“Jump?” Nivritti completed his sentence. No one replied to her but sadness, concern, fear, everything was visible on their faces. “Relax! He is not going to jump. He is just thinking about something.”
“How are you so sure?” shouted Korain.
“SK! If he wanted to jump, do you have any idea how much time we wasted to realise that he went up to the balcony?” asked Nivritti.
“She is right,” shouted Jung-Hwa.
“Well, I will tell you. We were preparing for tomorrow’s Live. We were just talking, and he just stood up and ran outside without saying a single word. As he is not allowed to drive for health reasons, we all ran after him. We followed him here at your house,” said Manager Park.
Nivritti finally realised why Young-Chul came to her house. She smiled and said, “not my house, his house!”
“What?” asked everyone together.
“I think you all overwhelmed him with your talk of Live and he came running to a place he knew to be his safe place, someplace he could relive his days before he became famous, before he had to deal with all this mental stress. Look at him, his head up, looking at the sky, his hands holding on to the railing tightly, he is going through something, he is clearly asking for help from the heavens. He wanted to come to a familiar place, that’s it,” explained Nivritti.
“What should we do?” asked Him-Chan.
“Just give him time. He needs to calm down. If you guys want one of you can go talk to him,” before Nivritti could complete her sentence all the boys started walking towards the balcony, but Nivritti stopped them with the show of her hands, “but let him cool for a while.”
“I think it would be better if you go and talk to him,” said Jeong-Eun to Nivritti.
“What?” asked Nivritti, shocked.
“Clearly, if he wanted to talk to us, he would have done that in our house. But he came running here. I think he came here because you live here. We have been together for so many years, but we have never found him in this house or near this house. You come and live here, and he comes running here. I think you should talk to him. Also, you have some knowledge of therapy and how to help people, please do that,” pleaded Jeong-Eun.
“Okay, fine. Tell me this, did something happen on Thursday?” asked Nivritti.
“Why do you ask?” inquired Kyung-Soo.
“Because I saw him on Wednesday before therapy and he was fine but after that, he has been very quiet, rarely talked to me and stopped replying to my messages,” said Nivritti.
“Well, SK Hyung went with him that day,” replied Thae. Korain was quiet but when he heard his name he looked around.
“Oh, nothing happened. The doctor gave him homework and he had to write a letter and read it to me. So, we did that and then I came out while he was inside the room for the rest of his session. After that he didn’t speak much,” replied Korain.
“Any other changes in his behaviour?” asked Nivritti.
“No,” replied Jung-Hwa.
“Except!” said Manager Park.
“Yes!” encouraged Nivritti.
“Since we started discussing the Live session and coaching them on everything, he kept getting angrier and angrier and kept shutting down. I had to ask him the same questions again and again before he would reply,” replied Manager Park.
“So, you were asking him to act,” sighed Nivritti.
“No!” protested Manager Park.
“Don’t deny, that’s what you were basically asking him to do. He has been trying hard to accept himself, trying to accept the love he receives. So, when you asked him to act, his imposter syndrome flared up. He thinks he is not eligible to accept so much love, and so much respect and that derailed him. My god! You guys too need therapy so that you can learn how to talk to your idols, how to treat them how to help them,” scolded Nivritti.
Every ASD member kept staring at her and listening to her explanation.
“Okay! Everyone, make yourself at home. There are drinks in the fridge. Jae, go back to sleep, you need your rest and I need to go to the bathroom,” said Nivritti.
“That’s why you were up?” asked Kyung-Soo. “And you were walking alone without any help?” he scolded her.
“Yeah, why didn’t you wake me up?” yelled Jae-Hwa.
“Guys! Relax, the first bathroom, then you can scold me,” said Nivritti. Kyung-Soo helped inside the bathroom and Jae-Hwa brought her protective covering.
While relieving herself, she closed her eyes, exhaled a big puff of air, and sighed loudly. “Not a day goes by that I don’t deal with drama in Korea. Korea! Korea! What are you doing to me? Please let me breathe calmly for a minute,” she kept mumbling to herself.