New Normal

Notifications once again flooded Yeo Ri's phone. Even her social media account which had just been created was easily found by the netizens, and the number of her followers increased to thousands in mere minutes.

Feeling overwhelmed, Yeo Ri slowly pulled away from the screen, switching it off, then placed it face-down on the floor.

Turning to her brother, she smiled helplessly. "Oppa, can you tell Min Chae and Jang Mi that I switched my phone off for the time being?"

Gun nodded to her request easily. With a few taps, he sent some texts to several people at once.

"There. I sent one to Mrs. Choi as well just in case she was looking for you."

Yeo Ri smiled gratefully.

Gun glanced at the time on his phone. Turning to the girl snuggled up to him, he gently asked, "It's late already. Do you want to take your medicine before bed?" Gun had an inkling that Yeo Ri wouldn't be able to fall asleep any time soon, so he offered to get her sleeping pills from their unpacked luggage.

"Yeah," she immediately assented. Yeo Ri already had trouble falling asleep on a normal night, and after all that fuss, she would probably have a harder time trying to fall asleep.

Gun reminded her to wash up before tucking into bed, then moved to find the medicine.

And so, the two retired to bed.

.

.

.

The next day.

Yeo Ri was unable to laze around due to her busy schedule, so by the time 8 o'clock rolled around, she was already dressed up for going out. On today's agenda, she had a piano lesson, followed by a martial arts class. Then, she would be attending a shooting for a commercial.

After keeping her phone switched off for the whole night, Yeo Ri finally reactivated it.

The delayed notifications caused the phone to buzz nonstop. Unable to stand it, Yeo Ri fumbled around with the settings, trying to mute them. Once she figured it out, Yeo Ri finally had some room to breathe.

She sighed, thinking about how frightening it was to be noticed by so many people, and how frighteningly calm she was after facing such a troubling predicament several times already. Perhaps she was beginning to develop princess syndrome, she wondered.

"Are you okay?" Gun asked, tapping her arm in askance.

"I'm fine. At this point, I'm getting used to it already." Yeo Ri let out a wry laugh.

Gun's eyebrows scrunched. "If it's too much, you can just quit, Yeo Ri-ah." Gun was worried that the attention she was getting was harming her, but the girl shook her head.

"It's just part of the job, Oppa. I'll be fine. I've already decided to commit to this." Yeo Ri sighed, leaning her head on her brother's shoulder. Even though she had hardened her heart to step into the industry, she still could not help but harbour a slight hint of regret. Judging from the reactions of the people she had met, it was clear that living a quiet, peaceful life would be difficult for her now.

"If you say so," Gun frowned. He didn't want his baby sister to do things that made her unhappy, and a large part of him blamed himself for convincing Yeo Ri to sign the contract with Park Soo Yeon.

"Alright, I have to get going now," Yeo Ri gave him a kiss on the cheek, "Make sure to eat breakfast before you leave for class."

"Okay..." Gun's frown did not slack as he patted her head. "Don't keep things bottled up if it gets too much, okay?"

"Yes, yes~ I really have to go now, Oppa—I love you."

"I love you too."

Gun wanted to send her off from the building entrance, but after getting stopped by Yeo Ri, he settled with seeing her off from the house door.

The young man sighed inwardly.

Nowadays, his younger sister who was still years away from adulthood was far busier than him. He didn't know why she was in such a rush to work, when she was always the one telling him not to work too hard. Alas, they were a 'double standards' family.

Just as the girl had instructed him, Gun dutifully finished up the breakfast that she had painstakingly prepared for him, then freshened himself up for school.

For the sake of convenience, the two had agreed upon choosing an apartment that was close to Gun's university, thus he didn't have to waste money on transportations. Since the university was within walking distance, Gun didn't bother with taking the bus unless he was running late.

"Gun~ my boy-friend~ wait up~!"

A familiar voice called out from behind him.

"Ha Jun." Gun greeted with a weary tone. No matter how friendly the other guy was, he could never get used to his excessive casualness. He really tried his best to open up to the overly peppy guy, but it was hard. Making friends was too difficult of a task for someone like him, Gun wistfully thought.

Ha Jun immediately caught up to him and threw his arm around his friend's shoulder. "Morning, friend. How's life? Oh, I saw Yeo Ri on TV yesterday. I didn't know she was such a good actress! Mrs. Choi must be really over the moon to have such a good protégé."

Ha Jun knew his friend quite well, and the first thing he mentioned to get Gun to loosen up was his darling little sister. "Not gonna lie, I think I wasted half a box of tissues yesterday," he quipped.

Just as he had expected, Gun's expression softened and the corner of his lips slightly raised. "Yeah."

"How is she doing, by the way? The internet is going crazy about her, I saw."

"She says she's fine. She wants to focus more on her projects so she's staying away from the medias for now."

"Cool! Care to give your good friend here some spoilers?" Ha Jun lowered his arm, then elbowed his friend. "Da Na doesn't know anything either. She said her mom wouldn't tell her anything because it's 'professional'."

"Yeo Ri landed two main roles," Gun stated. "But I'm worried that she's overworking herself."

"Seriously?!" Ha Jun gaped. Yeo Ri's charm was indomitable. Just by appearing on a single commercial, she had quickly rose to stardom. And yesterday's drama proved that she wasn't just a pretty vase; not only was she beautiful, she was talented to boot!

"You must be really proud," Ha Jun said.

Gun's mood seemed to soar as he thought of his sister.

Sensing that the other man had loosened up, Ha Jun soon moved on to another subject, steering into a school-related topic instead.

By the time the two realised it, they had already arrived at school.

There was still plenty of time left before class starts, so the two headed towards the student lounge instead.

Despite being early in the morning, the student lounge was fairly crowded, with some people relaxing and chatting while others were focusing on their laptops and notebooks.

As soon as they entered the area, other people's eyes could not help but be drawn towards the attractive pair, though the two did not pay attention to the gazes.

Ha Jun looked around, and after spotting Da Na on one of the tables, he dragged Gun towards the girl.

Unlike her usual clean and stylish appearance, Da Na seemed frazzled and unkempt. Her hair was a tousled mess, and her eyes carried heavy, dark bags underneath it.

"Woah, you look like you need a few doses of caffeine," Ha Jun teased.

"Don't test me, boy. I'm desperate right now," Da Na groaned, glancing up at the new arrivals briefly before returning to her furious typing.

"I'm way behind on the assignment for Madam Gong's class. Ugh, she's a strict grader, so I can't jeopardise this! Gun, did you finish yours?"

"What! Since when did we have an assignment for Madam Gong's class?! Why did nobody tell me!" Seeing Da Na's intensity, Ha Jun panicked. All three of them had taken many of the same classes including this one, but for some reason it completely slipped his mind. To make things worse, their first class of the day happened to be this Madam Gong's class.

"What do you mean nobody told you?! Madam Gong sent three reminders in the class group chat. I asked you about this two days ago, and you said you'd work on it soon. You airhead!" Her stress peaked, and Da Na began hitting Ha Jun's arm for release.

"Ow! Ow, stop!" The boy cried. "Sh*t, I muted the chat the other day. No wonder it felt like I was forgetting something!"

"Idiot! Stupid!"

"What about you, Gun?" Ha Jun bore with Da Na's abuse and turned to look at Gun. His gaze carried a trace of hope—hope for the rare chance that Gun was a comrade who had also somehow forgotten about it.

Gun offered him a nonchalant glance. "I submitted it three days ago." It was clearly a simple assignment, thus it had only taken him less than a day to complete it.

"What the—how are you so fast!" Ha Jun cried. He quickly latched onto Gun's arm, begging, "I'll buy you a meal if you help me—!"

Gun seemed to ponder about the offer. Though, he had already expected something like this would happen.

He'd given his friends the benefit of the doubt, but Ha Jun, who was the minimal-effort type, ended up not coming through. Still, he was already prepared for something like this, and had saved several of his unused resources just in case they needed it. After all, that was what friends are for, right? Not that he was trying to make things easy for them or anything. Some things still required personal effort, after all.

"Three," Gun counter-offered.

"Deal!" Ha Jun slid into the empty spot next to Da Na, then took out his laptop while Gun forwarded some files and articles to him through his phone.

By some miracle, Ha Jun managed to complete the assignment two minutes before it was time for class. Granted, his work was sloppy at best, but at least he had completed it. 

"Gun, I could just kiss you right now," he wept gleefully as he submitted the assignment in online. "Now let's go! Hurry!"

The three rushed to the lecture hall just in time before the lecturer came in.

"Hello, class. Before I go off on a rant about latecomers, just take a seat and we'll begin the lecture. There's a lot left to cover for this topic—"

—And so, another normal day in Lee Gun's life began.