To Kiss An Idol

137 The Depression

Nivritti was pondering upon if she should knock at the second door. She was sure that the man in the maroon went inside the room that she knocked but she was wrong. He entered a room in that vicinity, but she was wrong about which door she should enter.

She bit her fingernails and with determination was about to knock at the second door. If a stranger would answer that door then the last option would be the right one. She wanted to know who that man was. And if that was Kyung-Soo, why didn’t he return her message?

The moment her hand was about to touch the door, a hand from the next door pulled her towards itself. She threw her head backward with the force of the pull. The door locked itself the moment she was in.

Her purse and her overcoat fell to the ground. She was about to shout as she had no idea who grabbed her. But before she could shout, the man in maroon moved his hand to her waist to support her balance and placed his other hand over her mouth.

With physics acting all around Nivritti, when she was pulled, her t-shirt lifted itself due to the centrifugal force. The man just wanted to support her weight, but his fingers landed inside her t-shirt. Nivritti let out a yelp when his cold fingers touched her warm back but it was muffled as he had his hands over her mouth.

Everything happened so fast that she had no time to look at the face of the man. Finally, she looked at who was holding her. She gulped, her eyes widened, she almost stopped breathing as it was none other than Nam Kyung-Soo who was standing before her. She was right, the man in the maroon was Kyung-Soo.

What was he doing here? Why was he hiding his face? Why didn’t he reply to her message? How was Young-Chul doing? She had so many questions in her mind.

But for now, she was feeling nervous as she was so close to him. His hand was over her face touching her cheeks, her lips. A constant chill ran through her spine. She gulped and looked at him. Why did it always happen that she landed in his arms? If she could meet fate, that would be the first question, she would ask.

Suddenly she realised why she was feeling cold. His icy fingers were wrapped around her back, her bare back.

.....

“What? Oh no! First, he kissed me. Then we saw each other without any clothes on. Now, he is touching my bare back. Why am I moving so fast with him? I am not even dating him. Dating him? What are you thinking about, Ritti? You can never date him. Repeat after me, you will never date him,” she scolded herself.

Feeling embarrassed, she pushed Kyung-Soo away and stood away from him gulping awkwardly, trying to avoid looking at him.

“Why…?” she shouted but Kyung-Soo again pulled her by her waist and brought her close to his chest, again covering her mouth with his hand.

Nivritti gasped and held her breath. She forgot how to breathe. The bright maroon high-neck against his mesmerizing skin was making his skin glitter in the room’s bright light. It was difficult to remove one’s eyes from Kyung-Soo’s beauty. Nivritti’s heart was ready to leap out of her chest. Anyone would have grabbed their heart and placed it on Kyung-Soo’s feet due to his handsomeness.

But Nivritti had to be strong. She could not waiver. She was determined that she had no feelings for Kyung-Soo, nor she will ever get them. She again tried to push him away but his grip this time was strong. He was not ready to let her go.

“Mmm… mmm…” she tried talking.

“I will remove my hand but we have to whisper,” informed Kyung-Soo.

Blinking her eyes, she looked at him strangely. “What is he talking about? Why do we have to whisper?”

“Deal?” asked Kyung-Soo, again. Nivritti nodded at him.

Tenderly, he let her go. She straightened her t-shirt and looked at him. Without saying another word, he walked past her and picked up her purse and overcoat for her. He came to face her and handed her things to her. She kept looking at his face searching for even a faint smile but he looked sad.

“What are you doing here? And knocking at every door, do you have any idea how much you have disturbed others?” whispering, he scolded her.

“Sorry!” she lowered her head. “I just wanted to know if I was right. I saw you and thought that it was you.”

“Oh! You saw me. I thought you didn’t,” said Kyung-Soo.

“But what are you doing here? And why didn’t you reply to my message?” complained Nivritti. “I even messaged MY and JJ, but they too didn’t reply.” Her voice suddenly increased.

“Shh, shh, shh,” Kyung-Soo placed his forefinger over her lips and shushed her. Nivritti’s eyes widened again. He was again touching her. Blinking fast, she took a step back, away from his finger. “Sorry!” he immediately apologised for touching her. “I know you are worried about MY and we are sorry that we couldn’t tell you anything about him.”

“So, you guys deliberately didn’t message me?” asked Nivritti, disappointed.

“Sorry again! We could not tell you anything over the phone. You know we have this issue of being hacked,” said Kyung-Soo.

Nivritti nodded at his sentence. “But what are you doing here?” asked Nivritti.

“You wanted to know about Young. I am here because of him,” replied Kyung-Soo and gestured towards the other side of the room. The other side was dark. No lights were on. A hospital bed with a night table and two chairs near the bed was placed on that side of the room. The bed was completely covered with curtains from all sides.

“What?” asked Nivritti, confused.

“I wanted to tell you about him. I was just waiting to meet face-to-face. Now that you are here, come,” he grabbed her wrist and pulled her along with him. He walked up to the bed and slightly moved the curtain.

The face of the patient lying on the bed was revealed to Nivritti. She gasped with shock. Young-Chul was sleeping peacefully on the bed. His face was white as snow. Even his lips had no colour in them. An IV was hooked into his arm.

“What happened to him?” asked Nivritti, sadly. She didn’t like the fact that Young-Chul was looking extremely weak. It was just yesterday that she saw him, then how did he land in the hospital today?

“He hasn’t been sleeping well for the past few months. He lost his focus. Recently he complained about pain all over his body and for the past few days, he had problems with his stomach, vomiting, diarrhoea, and whatnot,” informed Kyung-Soo.

“What? How? How did it go so bad?” asked Nivritti. She placed her coat and bag over a chair and sat on the other one that was near Young-Chul’s head.

“He has been pulling away from us recently. He would get angry at small things. He lost interest in almost everything except cooking and his music. He would avoid spending time with us. If it was something official, he would be there else, he would be locked in his room. He would not eat well and started losing weight. Most of all, he always complained that JJ never let him sleep peacefully. We have been hearing this complaint for so many months now. Every day he would wake up and say that he didn’t sleep well. When he complained about headaches and stomach aches, we thought it was the stress of Rencontre or it was due to his lack of sleep.

“But last night, after I dropped you home, I went home and found that everyone was busy with their work but MY was in his room. We all thought he was resting like he said he would. Korain Hyung noticed that he had not eaten anything as there were no dirty plates in the sink or drying rack or even the dishwasher. Nor any packets of food were in the dustbin. So, it was clear that neither he cooked nor he ordered from outside. He just came home and slept in his room.

“After cooking dinner, JJ went to wake him up. The moment he entered his room, he shouted loudly and called every one of us. We went running after hearing his scream. When we reached, we found that JJ was trying to pick up MY from the floor. We had no idea but the moment My reached home and entered the house, he fainted on his floor and was lying there in the cold all day. We all cursed ourselves for not checking up on him the moment we reached home.

“We rushed him to the hospital. Doctors did all kinds of check-ups but could not find any physical problem with him. They treated the physical symptoms and did a mental health analysis. They found that…”

“He is depressed,” Nivritti completed his sentence for him.