To Kiss An Idol

233 The Experiment

Everyone was sitting on the balcony floor around Young-Chul listening to Nivritti and Young-Chul quietly. All were mesmerized by the way she calmed him down in a minute. He narrated everything that happened to him since Thursday. He was not feeling well after his session with his doctor.

He just said that he drove to her house but had no idea why.

“No, that was your brain taking you out of a difficult situation and taking you to your safe space. That is the first step to getting rid of the anxiety,” explained Nivritti. Young-Chul stared at her shocked. “So, I get that you don’t want to lie, but why now? Why does it bother you so much now?”

“Because that is my second homework. Tell something about myself to my fans that we have kept hidden. Show my real self to fans,” replied Young-Chul.

“And you fear that your fans will judge you, cancel you, or even stop loving you?” asked Nivritti.

“Uh… huh!” nodded Young-Chul and tears again started falling down his cheeks.

“MY! Do you know what I think?” she wiped his tears.

“What?” he sniffled.

“I think your fans know who you are. Even if you hide yourself, they can find out who you are. You don’t need to tell them all about yourself,” explained Nivritti.

.....

“What do you mean?” asked Korain.

“I told you when I applied for this job, I researched everything about K&Q, right?” asked Nivritti. All nodded. “So, I looked at song videos of all the groups, everyone’s daily videos, funny behind the scenes and then I went down the rabbit hole of fan-made videos. Have you watched them?” asked Nivritti.

“Where they portray us as mafia and write fanfiction about us?” Jeong-Eun jumped into the conversation.

“What? No! there is a video of you as a mafia?” asked Nivritti, shocked but at the same time intrigued.

“You watch those?” scolded Him-Chan.

“Okay, you need to tell me how to find those videos later on,” she signalled Jeong-Eun and then talked to everyone else, “I am talking about the videos where your fans psychoanalyse your every move, every gesture.”

“There are those too?” asked Young-Chul.

“Yes, many of the observation is wrong as they are not trained professional, but few are right. You have no idea how much your fans know about you even though you try to hide,” said Nivritti.

“So, you think I must tell them a fact about myself? And what should be that?” asked Young-Chul.

“That I cannot tell you. You have to figure that out by yourself. But the most important thing is that this should be about you. Will you be comfortable showing a part of your life to your fans? Will you be able to accept that person who will say those things before the camera or your imposter syndrome would again flare up? Will you be able to accept the verdict of your fans? Then you have to ask yourself which part of your life you want to reveal but only after you feel comfortable with sharing your life with your fans,” asked Nivritti.

“That’s why I came here,” he shouted.

“Okay, relax! Why don’t we take it slow? Answer me this if you wanted to share something about your life, what would that be? You can think of a small thing,” said Nivritti.

“Um… I can tell them all about my family,” replied Young-Chul.

“Wrong answer. Do you really think your fans don’t know about your family? They know more than you know about them. I am sure they stalk their social media too as they do yours. And giving them more personal information, which is not really about you would be wrong, to both your family and you,” explained Nivritti.

“I… I have an idea, but I don’t know if it’s the right one or if I want to tell anyone about it,” said Young-Chul.

“You want to tell everyone that you are in therapy, right?” asked Nivritti.

That shocked Young-Chul to his core. He shouted, “how do you know that?”

“Because you came here. You know I approve of therapy, and you really wanted someone to say to you that telling everyone about mental health is a good thing,” explained Nivritti.

“So, what do you say, should I?” asked Young-Chul.

“Hmm…” Nivritti scratched the back of her head and thought for a while. All kept staring at her with anticipation. “Okay, does anyone have any coins?”

“What? What? Why? Why do you need a coin? What are you going to do?” all started talking at once.

“Guys! Just give me one and I will tell you,” scolded Nivritti.

“Oh, no! We don’t have any money. Do you even see us? We are in our pyjamas. We ran after him without taking our wallets. We only have our phone with us,” said Kyung-Soo.

“I have a coin,” said Manager Park.

“May I have it,” she extended her hand towards him. “I will return it to you,” she added.

“Oh, I don’t care about that,” assured Manager Park and took out a coin from his wallet and handed it to Nivritti.

She looked at the coin and asked, “so, this bird side is, heads, right?”

“Yes, the crane is the head,” replied Kyung-Soo.

“Okay, ornithologist! Thank you!” taunted Nivritti making everyone purse their lips as they didn’t want to smile or laugh after the insult of their leader. But Young-Chul smirked a little. Nivritti saw that and her heart was filled with love and warmth. She was finally able to make Young-Chul happy.

“Here is the thing MY, I will flip the coin in the air. Heads, you tell your fans, tails, you do what your company wants you to. This way the decision will be on fate not you. You will not be held responsible in either situation. Is that okay, for you?” asked Nivritti.

“I guess, that’s okay,” said Young-Chul.

After his signal, Nivritti flipped the coin in the air and Young-Chul said, “Heads.” The coin came down and Nivritti caught it and immediately closed her fist.

“Ready?” asked Nivritti.

“Just open your fist!” shouted Jung-Hwa.

“Shh… everyone around here is sleeping. Don’t shout,” she scolded.

“Sorry,” whispered Jung-Hwa.

She raised her two fingers and opened her fist halfway and took a peek. Young-Chul was staring at her with open eyes. He was sitting straighter and straighter with every passing second. “It’s tails,” announced Nivritti. Young-Chul’s shoulder instantly slouched, and he sat back again, defeated.

“You don’t look happy, MY,” said Nivritti.

“I don’t know. Maybe in the back of my head, I was thinking about getting a head,” replied Young-Chul.

“Because you want to tell your fans?” inquired Nivritti.

“I don’t know, maybe I wanted to,” replied Young-Chul, confused.

Nivritti flashed a broad smile at him. “You do know that coin flipping for your problem was an experiment, right?”

“Now what idea did your brain concoct?” Kyung-Soo asked.

“Coin does not tell you what you should do. It tells you what is in your heart. If your desired result comes, you will be happy, but if the opposite happens, you will feel how MY is feeling now,” explained Nivritti.

“Oh, my God! You tricked him?” asked Korain.

“No, I helped him find what is in his heart. And he really wants to tell his fans about the ordeal he is going through. He wants to tell them that he is fine and wants their support as well,” said Nivritti.

“But he will not let me tell this to my fans,” said Young-Chul and pointed at Manager Park.

“Huh… what did I do now?” Manager Park was confused.

“Yeah, MY is right, no one in the history of K-pop idols have said anything about mental health and then not seen a decline in career,” said Kyung-Soo.

“And that fear will stop you from living a healthy mental life?” taunted Nivritti. She tilted her head and stared at him, angrily.

“I didn’t say that,” protested Kyung-Soo.

“What he is saying is that every company has this fear that netizens will cancel a group or an idol because they will perceive them as weak and thus for years no one has talked about that,” explained Manager Park.

“Exactly, years! We are talking about years. We have seen the globalisation of information in recent years. The Internet has made us aware of many world problems, healthcare is one of the pressing issues declared by the United Nations as well as the World Economic Forum and mental health is a major part of healthcare. Do you really think Korean netizens are not aware of that?” counterpointed Nivritti.

“We understand that. But how are we going to make our bosses understand? They invest so much in us. They do so much for us. They took care of us since we were young. Do you even know how they will feel when they get to know that we betrayed them?” contrasted Kyung-Soo.

“Okay, Mr. leader, tell me this. Have you even talked about this issue with your Boss, Mr. Hu?” asked Nivritti, condescendingly.

“Um… no, we haven’t. We never even started something along the line of this issue with him,” replied Young-Chul.

“Don’t you think you should? Maybe he too would be in favour,” said Nivritti.

“But what if he says no, how will you convince him?” asked Korain. He knew she would give him a reply that they could easily use, and everything will go their way. He had seen her use her brain. But will she be able to give a usable idea, again?

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