Ara seemed a little distracted all throughout the second day. He kept checking his phone when the teacher was not looking, and a constant frown hovered between his eyebrows whenever he read through a text thread.
Alex tried not to pry, but he wanted to make sure his new friend was okay. "You good?" he whispered when the teacher turned her back to circle something on the board.
Ara immediately shut off his phone and shoved it into his pocket, like it was fire and he had just gotten burned. "Yeah," he replied, his tone far from convincing. "Just got some stuff happening tomorrow night and my hyung's being really paranoid about it."
"I didn't know you had an older brother." Alex had thought from the moment they had met that Ara seemed more like an only child than anything.
Ara's eyes shot wide, like he had just spilled a military secret. "I, um, don't. He's a friend. Older than me. You know how Asian culture is about stuff like that." Why did it feel like he was trying too hard to cover up whatever slip he thought he had made? What was he hiding? And why did everyone Alex met have secrets?
Alex accepted it silently and turned back to listening to the teacher's instructions on lighting. He forced himself to look completely absorbed in the lesson even though he was reeling inside. He wanted to shake the answers out of Ara, but he should be used to this by now. He was the one that no one told anything to, so why should he expect that to change now?
When the break started, Ara grabbed his sleeve to keep him from leaving. "Stay," he said, a pleading look in his eyes that Alex did not have the heart to refuse. Once all the other students had left the room or were fully absorbed in their own conversations, Ara glanced around the room before asking quietly, "How well can you keep a secret?"
Alex blinked at him. "You'd trust me with a secret?"
Ara nodded. "I want you to know. So?"
Alex nodded in return. "Yeah, I can keep secrets. What is it?"
With a quick bite of his bottom lip, Ara said, "I'm an artist. Like, a singer." His eyes darted to every corner of the room before he continued, "I'm part of a boyband. The hyung I mentioned earlier, he's our leader."
"Are you famous?" Why was that the question that had come out of his mouth first?
Ara gave a small smile. "Well, our debut song made the Billboard top 100, so I guess so."
"So I've probably heard of you?" What was it with him and stupid questions today?
"If you've heard of BeauKiss."
It took all of Alex's concentration not to let his jaw drop. BeauKiss was in the news almost every week, breaking records and hearts with their insane talent and bold genderless concept. "You're kidding me."
Ara shook his head, that small smile turning tentative. "Nope. Not kidding. My stage name's Mirror, if you, uh, wanted to know."
"Are you actually, you know…"
"Genderless?" Ara shrugged. "Gender's pretty loose among the five of us. I'm cool with whatever. On stage, I tend to lean more feminine, but pronouns don't bother me. He, she, they, whatever you want to call me works. I know some of the others are fine with the flexibility both on and off stage, but I also know that some aren't comfortable with their work infecting their life outside of it."
Alex sat back, his back hitting the chair with a little more force than he had anticipated. The low ache in his ribs helped him reign in his inner fanboy. "I feel like I just entered an alternate dimension."
Ara chuckled, but his eyes were still begging for Alex to not freak out. "It's real, I promise."
"So what the hell are you doing here if you're, you know?" Alex motioned to the mostly empty room around them. "This seems like the last place I'd expect an idol to show up."
Ara looked down at his lap, picking at one of the stylish holes in his black jeans. "I'm about to be announced as a brand ambassador. The company thought I could use some basic modeling lessons before the announcement tomorrow night." He looked back up at Alex. "Am I a bad person for not telling you that from the beginning?"
Alex sat forward immediately, his hands automatically grabbing Ara's before he could really think about it. "No. You needed to know you could trust me. I mean, I'd want to become someone's friend before I told them I was legit worldwide famous. I think leading with that wouldn't exactly be a great idea."
Ara sighed, his relief palpable. "That's what Minjae told me." At Alex's slightly confused look, he clarified, "Ash."
"Ah." It was weird hearing the group's real names when Alex had gotten obsessed with them as soon as they had debuted. It had been back when he was still living with the man he refused to even think of as his father, and watching the music videos, live stages, interviews, tiktoks, and fan theories about the storyline had kept him sane through the worst moments of his life. "This is so…" He did not even have the right word for it.
"Weird?" Ara supplied, and they both cracked up.
Yeah, this was weird, but also the coolest thing that had ever happened in Alex's life. "I don't mean to sound like the world's worst fanboy, but is there any chance I could get you to sign my albums?"
Ara laughed again. "Oh my god, absolutely!" A sly little smile came his face. "If you want, I could probably get everyone to sign them. I might even be able to talk Minjae into letting you meet all of us."
Alex's jaw did drop this time. "You're lying."
"Nuh-uh. We're all here in the States." Ara grinned. "They wanted to support me becoming an ambassador, and the brand literally gave all of them tickets to the events as soon as I mentioned they wanted to come with me. So yeah, it's totally possible for me to get Minjae to let you crash our hotel rooms."
"Oh my god, I can't breathe." Alex put a hand on his chest. "Holy shit. This can't be real."
Ara laughed like a feral gremlin, attracting the attention of some of the students filtering back to their seats. "It's so real. I'll talk to him tonight. Maybe you can drop by before we leave in a couple days."
Alex felt like he had just mainlined caffeine and adrenaline. "I'll make sure to clear my very full calendar."
Ara laughed again before the rest of the class came in and the teacher called them to attention, and the rest of the session was spent correcting each other's choice of lighting and exchanging grins and knowing looks that sent Alex's heart into a rate so fast that he could not believe he had not yet had a heart attack. This all seemed just a little too good to be true.