THE MANAGER NIM

03. TO KILL A MOCKING MAN

The deafening sound of trolleys mixed with the chorus of incessant announcements doesn't sound that pleasant for your sensitive ears, but your brain is traumatized enough for not paying attention to any of those things happening around you inside that cocoon of steel, airport.

Even though you lounge on a comfy chair, the uneasiness inside you is ceaselessly arousing your thoughts and making you feel restless.

You don't know how you exactly feel right now.

Visiting South Korea has always been your dream but, you never wanted to stay or work over there, it just never settled with the idea of your ideal lifestyle that you wanted to lead as an adult.

Being an ardent fan of K-pop and BTS since high school, all you wanted to do was visit Korea, attend concerts, make sure BTS are real humans who exist in this mortal realm and finally bump into your favourite k-drama Oppa or k-pop bias which you yourself considered as mission impossible.

But you never expected that there will be a day when you will start a new life in Korea.

In a few hours, you will be landing in Korea, your dreamland,

but will you be able to survive there? Will you feel the same warmth you felt all these while in India? Will you be able to play Holi with your favourite colours over there?

You're clueless about the life you're going to live over there, so do your emotions.

Internally battling with your inner chaos, you silently stare at an old couple freshly roused from their catnap to board their respective plane

"Are you trying to hypnotize them?"

You recoil in surprise when you hear that unfamiliar male voice, his breathy whisper in your earlobe pulled you out of your battlefield. Your cheeks turn red out of anger.

Someone has invaded your personal space and that's something you hate to the core.

You swiftly turn around to see that amazing human who might have been burned down to ashes by now if you had the power to emit laser beams from your eyes.

There's a guy, sitting next to you with a playful smirk.

With that wide shoulders and angular face, surely he must have been a heartthrob in his high school and university.

He slides his fingers through his crisp black hair revealing his forehead to get a better view of you.

He looked handsome enough to be a cine star. But the rage inside you doesn't allow you to get smitten with his handsomeness.

You stare at him intensely instead of uttering a cry of annoyance.

It's been your habit since childhood, whenever you get mad, you neither throw tantrums nor fight with them, instead, you tend to become dead quiet, which scares the opponent even more.

You expect him to panic at your disgruntled glare but to your dismay, he looks unaffected, he tilts his head and peers at your face with a glint of mischief in his eyes.

"You look familiar, have we met before?", he asks with a pinch of genuine doubt in his voice.

As a consequence of your curbed temper, you intentionally ignore his question.

To avoid uncomfortable conversation further, you take out your phone and dive into social media. As expected, your timeline is flooded with BTS updates.

While strolling past the latest selca update of Jin, you can feel someone peeking at your phone from the corner of your eye and you know who that person is.

But unlike last time, you choose to stay unbothered, disregarding his whole existence.

"So, you are also a member of this crazy fandom huh?", he asks deliberately.

Little does he know what he is getting himself into?

That's it!

You have reached your saturation point.

"Yes. I'm a veteran army and a crazy K-pop fan, Jeon Jungkook is my ultimate bias. I hate dispatch and people who peep into other's personal stuff, so you can kindly stop what you're doing right now and respect my privacy", you growl.

Unlike last time he actually seemed affected by your spiteful words. A crease line of surprise and worry appears over his forehead.

"Whoa whoa whoa... calm down lady! I didn't mean to offend you, just felt curious about your mysterious aura, really sorry if I offended you", he replies with a sheepish grin.

Though your ego is appeased with his proper apology, a part of you feels guilty for behaving meanly towards him.

But you don't want to let him see your remorseful expression, it hurts your pride. So you continue to keep up your facade.

You both spend the rest of the time in awkward silence.

After a while, he swiftly rises up from his seat and strolls for a while.

You try your best to avert your gaze from him; you still feel guilty.

Finally, the announcement he had been waiting for arrives, he grabs his branded leather bag from the ground and fixes his headphones over his head in position. He seemed all set to depart.

He starts to walk past you without sparing even a glance, now it's his turn to disregard your presence.

You feel a sharp pang of disappointment and guilt.

But to your surprise he halts in midway and leisurely whirls around, pivoting his heels. He casually leans over his suitcase handle, gazing at you with a smug look. It stands in contrast to his previous gestures which looked like he was in an urge to leave somewhere.

And what's with that smug look, eww that looks gross.

"You neither have any mesmerizing features nor an hourglass figure, princess", your stomach drops at his candid confession about your looks. This guy is elevating the scale of your insecurities.

"But for some ambiguous reason I find you pretty and I'm dazzled by your aura, I still wonder why", he looks up at your face with a sly grin and continues," but, I must say after witnessing that nasty temper of yours, I really pity your boyfriend, if you have one", he says with a brow arched upwards to fake a questioning gesture along with an irritating smirk across his lips.

The piece said he throws a flirtatious wink at you and swiftly turns around shouting, "my seventh sense says we might bump into each other once again in future, so ciao princess!", he scoots towards the counter.

'Should I shoot him or stab him when we meet again?', your subconscious mind starts to contemplate.