She’s one of the biggest K-pop stars on the planet. She’s never been told no.
I’m about to do just that.
Cha Cha Min is used to receiving death threats. But when her newest stalker decides to destroy her dressing room, leaving a trail of destruction all the way to the stage, even she can’t ignore the damage path her life has become.
That doesn't mean she’s happy to see me. I’m the sort of man who gets called into situations that require a short answer and no questions about the resolution. Cha Cha hates my style, but her management team love me.
Good for them, because we won’t be seeing each other for a while. Cha Cha is going on holiday.
Away from all the lights and all the fans. She’ll be taking a break from the crazy while I figure out thewhoandwhereof her stalker problem.
But it looks like we brought the crazy along with us. Cha Cha is a double handful of trouble. The sort of trouble that’s addictive in all the wrong sorts of ways.
The sort of trouble I love. Mixing work and play is never smart, especially out here, away from everything. What happens in the mountains stays in the mountains.
Until her stalker comes knocking and blows our slice of crazy love all to hell.
For Mum
Clothing is tossed over furniture, like she was in a hurry before she left to head on stage. A toddler given gifts, play make up, toys and gems and tantrum time. But every time she yelled at the staff, scurrying about to do her bidding was a calculated manipulation.
Just like the lyrics of her songs.
In my playground I’m the queen,
In the realm of shattered things
All the broken hearts that surround me
Yours locked away just for me,
My secret lunchbox lover.
Her voice echoes through the backstage halls as I work, the same words bouncing around in a parody of my thoughts. None of it matters, not a damn thing, as I pull apart the already dismantled dressing room she ruined before she headed on stage an hour ago.
The show has another forty-five minutes before she'll discover the fresh damage, and my message. Her entourage in the waiting room outside this one think I’m one of them, for fuck’s sake. I’ve been invited to hot tub midnight rendezvous and orgies, banquets and afterparties. At every event, her little pack of mini sasaengs, her groupies who think they’ve come close enough to her but never actually…
Get there.
Not like me.
I’ve stepped inside her private domain. I’ve touched her things, and stolen her prized possessions.
Why?
Because I want to. Because I can.
Besides, right now, this is a job, like any other.
Or an obsession.
Let’s see how long the game lasts before I decide not to play any longer. Perhaps I should practice and see how that final act will go.
I swing my hammer in time with the final beat ofLunchbox Loverand shatter the mirror that holds the message of mine that she'll never read now, letting the shards scatter across the floor of her dressing room like a fragmented disco ball.
It’s prettier this way.
The hammer is a good tool. I like how it swings in my hand. The heaviness when I raise my arm. Maybe I’ll use it when I crack the weighted end into her skull.
