Paradise (18+ Hyunjin SKZ)

Arrival

It's been a difficult week for Hwang Hyunjin. His managers and his group members felt it might be best to avoid the publicity of the moment and escape to somewhere no one knows him, no one knows what's in the news, and be somewhere he can just relax and heal.

His manager told him Fiji was the place to go. He told him he could sit in a chair on a sugar sand beach and watch sunsets every night and no one would bother him. They even insisted he go alone, and warned him they wouldn't do so much as message him for at least a full week.

He brought one bag with him, with beachwear, a few swim suit trunks, and no work out clothes at all, intending to do exactly what he was told to do, nothing. The driver hired by JYP takes him to the prearranged hotel, where he doesn't even have to go into a lobby or check in, he just arrives at a small villa right on the beach, and his bags are already waiting for him. Apart from this arrangement, getting him to this space, there will be no more contact or interference from JYP, or anyone else.

He's actually never traveled internationally by himself. He's only 22 and has been working since he was 15 to get the chance to debut with a group. It's only been a few years that they've been together but they've grown as artists and as brothers. He's going to miss them. He hasn't been without them, 24/7, for years. He hasn't even slept in his own bedroom. It will be an adjustment, but he wants to think of this time as a chance to grow, and maybe to grow up because for the next week, he won't be able to speak to any of them. He won't do a V Live. He won't be on Instagram or Twitter. He will just be- alone. He's happy he brought his camera, even though he can't ever share the photographs publicly. No one knows he's in Fiji. If they knew it would defeat the purpose of coming to relax and to get away.

He opens the door to his hotel bedroom which overlooks the water and is completely open to the elements. He marvels at the crystal water, and the vista in front of him of the shallow bay, and the deep water beyond the reef. Maybe he'll go snorkeling one of these days. He looks down at the activities offered, written for him in Korean, although he knows he will use mostly English here on the island. He's been looking for an excuse to practice English. It had been nearly a year since they were outside of Korea because of the pandemic and they had all gotten a little bit out of practice. English is spoken as much as Fijian so he should have plenty of opportunity to use it.

A staff member knocks on the door and steps into the room, surprising him as he sits on the bed looking at the activities list.

"Excuse me. Today, would you like to have a massage, to have a Zoomba class, or to have chef's tasting class?" Hyunjin looks up at him confused. He realizes, quickly translating the English in his head, that his offers are to relax, to work out or, to eat delicious food, and that last option sounds perfect.

"Can I go to the chef's tasting please?" he asks and the staff member nods, and bows.

"I will come for you in one hour," he says, bowing his way out of the bedroom. Hyunjin gets up and looks at the doorway to see him walking off up the beach toward the other staff members waiting. They look back at him in the moment and he ducks away from the window to hide from them, wondering what they know, if they know. He peeks back to see them each turned and walking away, and instead, he focuses on the figure of a young woman walking along the beach crossing over their path, starring down at the screen of a DSLR camera. She's wearing a bikini, with a net cover over that hugs every curve of her body. She looks foreign, not Fijian, and he thinks she must be a guest at the resort. He moves to the middle of his window to watch her, curiously, as she seems to aim the camera, and check the settings.

She raises the lens toward him, unconsciously, and it's as if their eyes meet through the barrel of the lens in one electrifying jolt. His mouth drops open as he realizes she has seen him. She lowers her camera quickly, as if she realizes she has disturbed him and she smiles, awkwardly, and waves slightly as she turns away from him, walking back up the beach following after the staff members. He watches her form curiously as she continues up the beach toward the hotel building. He realizes that she must not have meant any harm, and she didn't seem to recognize him. He smiles to himself thinking 'why would she, she looked western,' and he isn't so famous that every western tourist would recognize him, yet.

He realizes he's still watching her walk away in the instant she turns back toward him and their eyes meet again. He gasps and blushes with the embarrassment of being caught watching her. Her eyes gaze at him a moment and then she turns and continues into the resort building. He exhales and moves away from the window. This is not a good start to the break, flirting accidentally with foreign photographers.

He closes the shade on the window and turns to the doorway open to the water. He can focus on the water, and the beautiful view and not the girl with the camera, and he can relax. He sits down in the lounge chair placed in the center of the view out into the bay. He looks over the water and lets the breeze wash over him and then, for an instant his thoughts return to her. She probably doesn't even know who he is. He stops, thinking about that idea again, and a smile begins to spread across his face in a wicked grin, full of hope, full of plans.