Chapter Text
April 13
It was the first clear day after an entire week of unpleasant drizzle and puddles that had filled the Rainbow Taxi parking lot. So Go Eun was ready to justify her presence on the roof in the middle of the workday by saying that the last time she’d seen the sun was in a picture… Okay, okay. A week ago. An entire week ago! So, armed with sunglasses, she settled down on the bench on the roof without a hint of guilt. Maybe the fact that Bigbang had reunited on the Coachella stage today had something to do with the sun finally coming out, too. Go Eun remembered those days perfectly, when she used to fool around to their songs with her sister. Back then, the warm rays of sunlight mixed with the shadows of two dancing bodies, while her heart beat along to the rhythm of the music. Their mother often scolded them for playing the songs too noisily, so they had to put on headphones and listen to the music on a phone. But even that didn’t stop them from singing along and fooling around.
Now Go Eun could feel something quietly howling inside her, almost like the static of a radio turned down to a low volume. Especially when she heard those familiar songs coming from the Coachella stage again, the lyrics practically etched into her skull. But she didn’t have the strength to sing along. It felt as if a stone-sized lump of grief had gotten stuck somewhere in her throat. The most important thing was not to burst into tears during her favorite song…
Our favorite song.
Maybe that was another reason she’d put on the sunglasses. No. She needed to get her thoughts in order. Go Eun even shook her head, trying to steer her thoughts somewhere else.
Actually, she’d snatched these sunglasses from Kim Do Gi, and now she looked downright suspicious. As if she really were hiding something. After all, basically no one knew that she had once had a GDragon poster hanging above her bed, and that she might still have a light stick lying around somewhere. No one knew that she’d dreamed of going to a Bigbang concert, and that if she’d ever gotten the chance back then, she would’ve skipped school for it without a second thought.
And it wasn’t as though it had been some kind of secret. She simply hadn’t known when she could have shared that information. And with whom? With the drivers who shoved their route sheets through her window, while she was supposed to answer, "Oh, by the way, I love Bigbang."
"Thanks? Check the fare."
And that would be it, yup.
Or, for example, Mr. Choi or Mr. Park probably wouldn’t have understood any of it. They were old-school and listened to something on the radio or on a music player. And it probably wasn’t GDragon. Maybe H.O.T. or Kim Gun mo. Mr. Jang was out of the question, too. Romantic ballads on vinyl were hardly in any way similar to the buzzing opening of "Bang Bang Bang." And Kim Do Gi… There was only one thing that could be said about him - Girls’ Generation. Yeah, maybe he was listening to something else, of course. But for some reason, that thought made Go Eun want to smile to herself. She never would have put those two things together in the same equation. Ex military man + girl group. Well, life knew how to surprise you.
And that was perfectly normal. Not everyone had to have the same tastes. They were different, and that wasn’t a bad thing at all. It was just that sometimes Go Eun wanted to be silly with someone again, like she used to after school, listening to songs by a group she had once loved, without thinking about life’s troubles. A couple of minutes would have been more than enough.
Half of the performance had already passed when the stupid, unbearably squeaky door - the kind that could cause a couple of nervous tics in the left eye - finally made a sound behind Go Eun.
"Oh, of course. Apparently, our accountant has moved to the roof, huh?" Mr. Choi’s familiar voice made Go Eun freeze, hoping that the people who had just walked in would assume she was some kind of hallucination.
"Did she fall asleep or something?" a second voice sounded closer. It was Mr. Park, and there was no way they were going to fall for her attempt to pretend she was invisible.
"Are those my sunglasses?" Kim Do Gi appeared in front of her so suddenly that she couldn’t help but flinch and press her phone against her chest. But, not wanting to lose face, she pushed the sunglasses up onto the top of her head and tried to come up with the most convincing excuse.
"Ooh… I’m on my break."
"Actually, your break ended twenty minutes ago," Mr. Choi replied as he sat down on the bench.
"Exactly. You make us go back to work the second another second passes, and here you are, taking a longer break than you’re supposed to," Mr. Park continued, appearing behind her and leaning against the back of the bench.
Only Do Gi watched the exchange from the side. He crossed his arms over his chest and smiled slightly.
"What?" Go Eun gasped, moving closer to the edge of the bench and holding her phone against her side. "It’s my job to count, actually, and it’s not over yet. I counted."
"And what are you even looking at?" Mr. Choi asked curiously, moving closer. Go Eun had to pull her phone out and move it slightly to the side.
"What? Nothing. What kind of question is that? It’s work… Kim Do Gi-gisanim!" But she didn’t even notice the exact moment when Do Gi managed to take the phone from her hands. To be fair, she had practically handed it over herself. At least, that’s what it looked like.
"So, what is it? What could possibly be keeping our accountant’s attention during work hours?" Mr. Park asked, crossing his arms over his chest. Kim Do Gi looked at the screen for a little while longer. Of course, it was difficult to tell anything from his expression. But he expertly pretended to look at something on the screen. Then he simply turned it off.
"Well, there are some numbers here. I don’t understand them. Definitely something accounting-related. Nothing illegal." And he handed the phone back to Go Eun. At first, she let out a little laugh. But then she suddenly became serious and turned toward the mechanics. They were already starting to get nervous, and even took a step back.
"So… what does this mean? Our accountant is working even during her break?" Mr. Choi said, exchanging a glance with mr. Park.
"Looks like it," Go Eun replied, putting her hands into her pockets.
"And what exactly are we supposed to do about all the things we just said about our accountant?" Mr. Park whispered.
"I think we should go back to work," Mr. Choi quickly said, already trying to leave. He grabbed Mr. Park and pulled him along, but their attempt to turn around and escape failed. Go Eun caught up with them.
"Wait, wait. Maybe you could… bring me some coffee?That way, we can settle the situation with all the things you said about your accountant, hm? Please" She looked like an absolute angel as she said it, and even smiled at the end. Naturally, this made the mechanics suspicious, and they became even more frightened.
"You’re being way too nice. Is that really you?"
"No. If you want, I can be mean." She shot them a glare that perfectly matched her words.
"Okay, okay, we’ll bring you coffee. We’ll bring it," Mr. Choi quickly agreed, before hurrying through the door with Mr. Park.
"Thank you! And I’ll just work here for now…"
She turned around, only to catch Kim Do Gi quietly laughing at the whole situation, and immediately wished she could disappear.
"So you literally made them go get you coffee because you’re watching a Bigbang performance?" Kim Do Gi asked, sitting down on the bench.
"That’s exactly what I needed right now! And don’t laugh!" Go Eun replied, sitting down on the other side and covering her face with her hands.
"So… Bigbang?"
"They reunited again after all these years. Seriously, how could I possibly miss that?"
"I didn’t know you liked them." Do Gi kept his eyes on her for a moment. Go Eun hadn’t thought that she’d ever actually end up at this point in time. But now she had no choice but to lay her cards on the table.
"I’m a longtime fan… I don’t know. My sister and I absolutely loved them. I remember how we used to fool around to ‘Haru Haru.’ People were supposed to cry while listening to that song, but we used to parody GD and T.O.P.’s argument from the music video, and we thought it was hilarious…"
"Sounds like you two had a good time…"
"We did. When I was fourteen, I was sure we were going to make it to one of their concerts. I even used to save some of the pocket money I was given, and then…" She fell silent for a while, her gaze lingering on the three flags gently fluttering in the breeze. Then, as if brushing those thoughts away, she gave a slight shake of her head and looked at Do Gi, letting a faint smile slip through. "Maybe that money is still lying somewhere between my old textbooks, being used as bookmarks," she chuckled, leaning back against the bench and interlocking her fingers. "If I’d put it all together back then, it might even have been enough for a ticket…"
"I was... There"
She thought she must have misheard him.
"What?"
"At the concert… Bigbang" He even cleared his throat before answering.
Go Eun slowly turned her head toward Do Gi without taking her sharp gaze off him, and her eye was already starting to twitch a little from all of this. Seriously?
"These are my sunglasses, right?" Do Gi quickly changed the subject, pointing at the top of Go Eun’s head, while she continued staring sharply at him.
"What did you just say, Kim Do Gi-gisanim?" Go Eun asked again, taking the sunglasses off the top of her head in one motion and handing them back to the driver.
"Nothing special."
Do Gi blinked once more as he closed his hand around the sunglasses. He tried not to meet Go Eun’s gaze, especially since she seemed to have moved closer.
"You went to a Bigbang concert and that’s ‘nothing special’? What, for you is that like going to the store to buy kimchi or something? It’s a Bigbang concert! I need to know everything! Where? When? What songs did they perform?"
"I don’t remember, Go Eun-ssi," Kim Do Gi said with a little laugh, but that answer did not satisfy her at all.
"Who was your favorite member? Wait, you saw GDragon in person?! What was he like? Is he just as cool in real life? And what year was it? What color was his hair? Maybe it was the ‘Heartbreaker’ or ‘One of a kind’ era? ‘One of a kind’ is my favorite song, by the way. Or maybe it was during ‘Zutter’?" Go Eun finished, twirling her finger beside her cheek. Do Gi looked back at her like someone who had spent all night studying for a chemistry exam, only to be given a test on his knowledge of Bigbang. Maybe he should’ve taken the advanced course.
"I’m not that knowledgeable."
"Just tell me when it was." Go Eun, now fully in her fangirl era, moved even closer. She literally grabbed him by the arm and had no intention of letting go until she got at least one answer.
"I don’t remember exactly what year it was, but I was already in the army then. Some of my fellow soldiers suggested we go while I was on leave. That’s all." He answered so calmly while scratching the back of his head, but Go Eun still looked completely stunned.
"Okay, okay. So does that mean I’m only one handshake away from knowing GDragon?" Go Eun thoughtfully leaned back and moved away from him.
"I didn’t shake his hand, Go Eun-ssi." Kim Do Gi shook his head, trying to look serious, but a smile still slipped through.
"Wow. No, seriously. WOW." She slowly got to her feet, still mentally somewhere in another world. Yes, in that world where Kim Do Gi had been to a Bigbang concert and hadn’t told her about it. She was in complete shock. Even the fact that Mr. Choi and Mr. Park brought her coffee didn’t help the situation. When Go Eun approached the door, she practically gulped the coffee down before immediately disappearing from the mechanics’ surprised gazes.
At this point, they probably needed to stop being surprised by everything accountant did at Rainbow Taxi.
And then, throughout the entire day, she still couldn’t get over the news. Literally every time Kim Do Gi appeared in front of her workplace, she asked him another question.
"And what section were you in? No, did you really see GDragon in person? I can’t believe it. Was he just as handsome in real life?"
"I don’t know. He seemed pretty ordinary." Kim Do Gi answered absently while filling out a route sheet.
"Ordinary??? What do you mean, ordinary? Are we buying apples at the grocery store again or something?"
"I liked T.O.P. more."
He handed the papers back, saying it just as calmly. At that point, the accountant was no longer interested in the papers. Go Eun’s eyes widened. He had to be messing with her.
"No…" She immediately closed the window in his face, then opened it again "No. What do you mean, you liked T.O.P. more? Who even are you? Why am I only finding this out now?"
"I have to go." That was the only thing Do Gi said before heading off to carry out his work duties.
"You can’t just say things like that and walk away, Kim Do Gi-gisanim!" Go Eun opened the large window in front of her and shouted after the departing taxi driver. Then still shaken, she sat back down in her chair. How was she supposed to work calmly after something like that?
But by the end of the workday, all the shock had somehow disappeared, as if a blown-up balloon had slowly deflated, and she had run out of questions.
So Go Eun calmly filled out reports, and for the first time in several hours, she wasn’t thinking about the things that had been itching at the back of her mind all day.
Until someone knocked on her window. She didn’t raise her head, and simply opened it, continuing to write something on the papers in front of her.
"I was thinking… Listen, if we don’t have any cases, maybe we could go…" It was Kim Do Gi, but his voice sounded rather hesitant.
"Where?" Go Eun asked without taking her eyes off the work in front of her.
"To a concert."
"What concert?"
"Bigbang"
At that exact moment, her pen abruptly stopped moving, and Go Eun’s mouth actually fell open. But she immediately covered it with her hand and stared at Kim Do Gi for several seconds. What had he just suggested? Was she dreaming? Or had she overheated in the sun? Right. Go Eun quietly exhaled.
"Um… sure…Let’s go." She said it calmly, still not fully believing what was happening.
"That’s a pretty calm reaction for someone who spent the entire day giving me questions from a national exam on Bigbang knowledge," Kim Do Gi snorted, leaning his shoulder against the wall.
"Oh, you have no idea how much everything is exploding inside me right now. You get it, right? Like…exploding…BIG BANG…"
"Yeah, yeah. I get it." He nodded, letting a small laugh slip through.