Take My Hand

Chapter 2

Matthew Hong never dreamed of becoming a celebrity. He was a normal kid who tried his best not to stand out too much so he could avoid being bullied. He was not even a straight A student who only focused on their studies. He kept to his close friends, who were mostly Asian, like himself, and only joined the swimming team because he had fun. Even there, he was mediocre. Matt only won the gold medal once, and that was the time someone took notice of him and asked him to audition to become a Korean idol.

It was his senior year in high school, and he was feeling the pressure of the question about what he wanted to do after he graduated. He felt envious of his friends who already thought about their future, applying for such colleges, so he did the same. None of their dreams seemed to be like his, though, and he thought he would never find his until he met that talent scout, who told him he looked like he had some hidden talents in him.

His mother was Korean, but she was raised in a small town in the New York state and could barely speak the language, herself. Naturally, Matt never really learned Korean, as well. He had always been one of the "Asian Kids" back in their school, so he was used to being different.

When he came to Korea, he did not know anyone or anything about the country. Equipped with a small English-to-Korean dictionary hurriedly bought in the airport, and a carrier bag with enough clothes to last him a month, he went to look for his dream in a country he only heard stories about as a kid from his Grandpa.

He also brought his positivity with him, but all of that changed when he realized he did not know anything about what he signed up for. He moved into a dorm full of other trainees and felt the prejudice the moment he stepped in.

Matthew Hong was handsome. That was the only reason why he was casted. He could not sing, nor dance. He did not know anything about music at all, but he passed the audition. The looks from other trainees who had been trying and trying to get in were so obvious that they did not need to put them into words. They looked down on him because he could not do anything.

He considered running away and giving up. It was not the place for him. He felt ashamed of himself for even being confident that he would make it, when there were thousands of other kids his age that was WAY more talented than him. However, whenever he remembered his mother's relieved face at Matt finally finding something he wanted to do in his life, and he started to unpack his bag again.

Gritting his teeth and ignoring the prejudice about him, Matt tried three (if not ten) times harder than anyone, even in their Language lessons. He learned everything from the basics because he did not know anything about dancing or singing. He found another thing he loved when he entered the studio for the first time for their rap lessons. He always loved hiphop, and even though he was still learning the language, he knew it was what he wanted to do.

Four years later, he was already the "Matthew Hong" that fans called out to whenever their group came out. Finally, he could make a name for himself. One thing he noticed about the industry was that they were given their own positions in their group.

Derivative's "Leader" was Lim Jason, who had the longest training period in their company, long enough to know how to compose his own songs, was also the Lead Vocalist. Park JR was their Main Vocalist, since he was the best singer among them. Another half-Korean, half-Chinese member was their "Main Rapper". Kim Ian was the best dancer among them, so he was naturally the "Main Dancer". And since Matt was the "Face Genius" among them, he was made the "Visual Member" and "Center" although he did not know what the last meant because he was given the least parts and was always at the sides during their choreographies.

Not that he was complaining. It was his fault for not being enough on those fields, himself. There were a lot of trainees more talented than him that were either eliminated during monthly evaluations, or did not make the debut cut and still learned training lessons. Matt was mostly disappointed with himself, so whenever he met a fan who supported him sincerely, he would always make a note to himself to try a little bit harder.

The familiar song that played in the background build to the bridge part and Matt stepped in the center. It was six seconds of a song over three minutes that he had the center to himself. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and put on a face he practiced on for hours as he delivered his lines. After his part, he walked to the back to his position as the final chorus soon faded out and they did the closing pose.

When the music stopped, he let out a sigh, resting his hands on his knees as he chased his breath. So did the others. They eyed their creative director, trying to read his judgement in his expression. They had to rearrange their choreography for the upcoming gig three days later and they had spent five whole hours in their practice room. That was after thirteen hours of traveling and fulfilling their schedules for that day, and three hours before that for their make-up and other preparations. Matt originally liked math, but he did not really want to calculate how many hours they had left to rest until their next schedule at dawn.

Matt never thought he would hate the words, "One more run from the start," but at the time, he was about ready to give up.

"Matt," Creative Director June Lee called out. "On JR's part on the second chorus, make sure you bend your knees fully so you don't stand out."

"Yes, sir," he nodded. He thought he got away with that but of course, he did something wrong again. He felt Jake tap his shoulder encouragingly.

"And make sure you practice on your pronunciation more," June added, to which Matt acknowledged. "Well, let's call it a night. Good work, everyone."

Everyone but me, right, Matt thought, but he bowed along with everyone to thank their director as he exited the practice room. Ian walked over to one of the mirrors and did a few counts of dance steps, obviously not done with practice yet. Jake took of his snapback and lied down on the floor, taking a couple of minutes to rest.

"Do you want to order and eat here, or should we just order at the dorm?" Jason asked.

"I'll sleep here," Jake announced. "I don't think I can move anymore."

JR laughed, knowing the guy did not really mean it. For someone as energetic as Jake, he was actually sensitive when it came to sleeping, which was why he and Matt shared a room. JR took the dry mop naturally and started wiping the floor, hitting Jake with it.

Matt took a seat on the sofa, reaching for the bottled water which he drained in just seconds. He quietly opened his bag, searching for a clean shirt he could change into because the one he had on was soaking with sweat. "I'm fine with anything," he told Jason.

"Jake, move over," JR said.

Ian saw what his hyung* was doing and took a second mop so they would be done faster. Their practice room was not that big and they were done in only a couple of minutes. Jason took the liberty of ordering their dinner s***h midnight snack and had it delivered to their dorm, which was a ten-minute walk from their company's headquarters.

"What did you order?" Matt asked Jason as they made their way out of their company's building.

"Black bean noodles," the leader replied with a smirk. "With extra dumplings and sweet and sour pork."

Satisfied, Matt gave his friend a high five. Among the five of them, only Matt was not in the diet program, which meant he could eat as much as he wanted. JR's was not as strict as Ian's but he did not like eating greasy food such as black bean noodles. Jake, who preferred organic food, would have prepared a meal in their fridge, which only he could eat. Ian was not allowed to eat anything after six PM. That meant more food for Matt and Jason. The leader was in the same program as JR's, but he regularly cheats and just make up for it by an extra hour in the gym.

They arrived at the dorm shortly. They had been living together in the same unit for two years now, ever since their group's debut had been decided. Next to their unit was another unit owned by their company, which was bigger than theirs, housing twelve trainees, all of whom they almost never meet. Some of those trainees still went to school, and spend the rest of their time in their company's Training Center, which was in a building on a different part of the neighborhood.

They met one of those trainees at the door, as he was on his way back from the convenience store. Chris saw them and bowed when he recognized his seniors. Jake immediately put an arm over the kid who was the same age as Ian and asked how his day was.

The elevator was small so the six of them just went up the stairs. They all lived in the second floor, anyways. Matt was the last to go and heard the ping of the elevator. Sticking a tongue out at JR, Matt walked towards it. He was too tired to walk the flight of stairs. By the time he arrived at their apartment, someone would have opened the door already, and all he would need to do was walk in.

A person was making her way out of the elevator. Matt recognized Sam and smiled immediately. She looked surprised to see him there. He wondered if she recognized him since it had been almost a week since they last saw each other.

"Good evening," he greeted.

"Hi," she said quietly.

Matt looked her up and down. She was dressed in a plaid buttoned-up shirt, probably two sizes too big for her, over a black skater skirt which only showed up to half of her thighs, and high-cut sneaker shoes. He glanced at his watch. It was almost midnight.

"Are you going somewhere?" he asked, trying his best not to sound so nosy.

"I have to go to the radio station," she answered. "One colleague had an emergency and they needed someone to replace him for the opening."

"But it's midnight," Matt said.

"I know right," she said with a roll of her eyes. "Just when I thought I could get a day off the called for backup. And unfortunately, my car is still at the shop so I'll have to take the bus. Are you coming back just now?"

He nodded.

"Wow, you guys really work hard, huh?" The way she said it made Matt feel as if she had some first or second-hand experience with practicing until late. "Well, rest well. I'll go now."

Matt watched her bow slightly and walk towards the building's main entrance. Making his mind up, he followed her. "It's late. Let me walk you to the bus stop."

Her eyes grew wide and she waved her hands in rejection. "No need. I usually go out at this hour anyway, so it's not really something to worry about."

"If something happened to you I wouldn't be able to forgive myself after seeing you just now," Matt told her. He opened the glass door, himself, gesturing for her to go first. "This is mostly for my peace of mind."

Sam appreciated it and so they walked down the road.

"Did you give Peachy away already?" Matt asked randomly. It was the only thing he could think of at the time.

"Not yet. I don't even have the time to even do that." She was actually just putting off having to meet Kyle's sister. The moment she gave Peachy away, the more it would show her that she was now alone.

Matt remembered her mentioning where she was going. "You said you work at a radio station. Which one?"

"KBC Radio," she answered.

He vaguely remembered that being part of their schedule the previous month. "Really? We went there during the first week of our promotions."

Sam nodded. "I was there. That was how I recognized you were from SkyHigh."

Matt felt bad for not recognizing her. He did not even remember seeing her there. He usually did not pay that much attention to his surroundings but now he regretted not seeing her.

"I had to replace your headphones," she volunteered, seeing he looked guilty for not recognizing her. "But it's fine. I'm already used to the guests not really seeing anyone but the producer and the DJ. It's not a big deal."

"Sorry about the headphones," Matt said, scratching his head. He remembered breaking it when it fell from his head and dropped to the floor while he was laughing rather hysterically at a joke Jake said. He heard their manager tried to pay for it but the audio director (or whatever) said it was okay and let them go. "We actually tried to pay for it but Hyung said they refused."

She scrunched her nose. "It was actually just a good excuse to get a new one. Thanks to that incident, they allowed me to order a new batch of headphones."

He blinked at her. "So you mean you were the..."

"The audio engineer," she offered when he did not seem to find the right term. "Yes. Junior Audio Engineer, actually. And I should have recognized your manager the other day. I would need to thank him properly. Finally, the budget team listened to me. Oh, and you. Thank you for getting rid of that old model for me."

Matt could not help but laugh at that. "You are welcome. Just call me if you need to break any more headphones."

They came to the bus stop and she turned to him with a small smile. "Thank you for walking me here."

"Anytime," Matt said, only half listening. His attention was on the man who was walking unsteadily, making his way towards them. The man seemed to be drunk, and when he was a few feet from them, Matt also guessed he was either homeless or had not taken a bath in a week. "Looks like I will have to stay until the bus came."

"That's fine," she started to say. She was looking at her phone so she saw the drunk man a bit late. Her eyebrows creased, trying to make out the man from a distance. "I wonder if that uncle is okay."

"He looks drunk," Matt said. "So it's really better I stay til your bus came."

"No," Sam muttered. "He looks..."

"Sam-ssi," Matt called when she started to walk towards the man. It could be someone dangerous.

She did not listen to him at all and went ahead. As Matt began to follow her, he saw the guy fall to the ground. Sam ran and so did he. She got on all fours, checking on the man who seemed to have fainted. He fell face first and there was blood on his forehead, which Sam covered with a handkerchief she found in her pocket.

"Matt-ssi," she said. "Can you call the emergency line, please? This man's breathing is very faint. I think he had a heart attack or something."

Frantically, Matt did as she said. When the person answered on the other line, Matt had to make her ask her question twice. He told the lady on the phone the address and that they need to get an ambulance. When he got off the phone, he found Sam trying to move the man. He helped her with what she was doing and was finally able to get the man to lie on his back.

"How long will the ambulance be here?" she asked.

"They said around ten minutes."

"Can you check his pockets for candies?" she told Matt as she checked the man's pulse on the neck.

Matt searched the man's jacket pocket and indeed found a candy. "Yes, there is."

"I think he's diabetic," Sam muttered. She started to say something but searched the man's pockets herself, instead. She found the man's wallet and opened it, using her phone as illumination. "I knew it."

She took the candy from Matt and opened it. She bit it in half and forced the man's mouth open, putting the cracked candy on his tongue.

"Do you know this man, Sam-ssi?"

"I've seen him before," she said as she held the man's chin so his mouth was closed. "I saw him this afternoon and he looked even paler than the last time I saw him. It says on his wallet that he has diabetes."

"But he looks homeless," Matt commented. He checked the wallet she handed him and found she was right. How she knew the symptoms for her to make a really good guess, Matt had no idea.

"Then, most likely he needs a shot of insulin," she muttered.

Sam was needed in their office. It sounded like it was an emergency when she told Matt about it, yet she went out of her way to help someone she did not even know. Matt felt sort of ashamed of himself that the first thing he did when he got a brief look at the man was to think he might do something bad if he left Sam alone in the bus stop. Yet there was this girl who did not even hesitate in helping him. Matt had a suspicion that she would have done CPR on the man if it was necessary. She looked like she was capable of doing it.

The ambulance came and two paramedics came out with a stretcher. One of them talked to Sam about the man's condition, and she gave them information that Matt did not make sense of. He could only watch them as they set the man on the stretcher and carried him to the ambulance. The man seemed to be moving already, in contrast to how he was when they found him.

Sam's phone rang just as she was about to enter the ambulance as well.

"Uh, I might run a bit late, PD-nim," she said on the phone. "There's an emergency I need to go to... I'm really sorry, PD-nim. I'll get there as soon as I can."

Quietly, Matt went to her and lightly patted her elbow. "Sam-ssi."

"Yes?"

"I'll go with them," Matt said before he could stop himself. "At least until his family comes for him or something. You should go to work."

"But you should rest," Sam argued. "I'm sure you have schedule tomorrow."

Matt knew that and he was already regretting offering to go as he spoke. However, he was a man of his word, and he also thought his guilt would lessen if he did something for the man.

"Well, at least I can tell the hospital what happened here," he offered. "Just give me your contact information as well, so I can let you know."

The person on the other line said something and she put the phone back in her ear. "Yes, PD-nim. I'll go there right now. I'm really sorry." The call ended and she turned to Matt. "This is just one time, I promise. I really apologize for troubling you like this."

"Ma'am," the paramedic called. "We need to go."

Matt handed Sam his phone and had her enter her contact number before the paramedic yelled at them. A part of him yelled at Matt to stop what he was doing, go back to the dorms and sleep, but when he looked back through the ambulance's tinted window, he saw Sam watching the ambulance go with a worried look on her face and he decided he was doing the right thing.

He stared at the screen of his phone where her contact information was dialed. She did not save it yet and Matt wondered how he should save her name as.

"What is your relationship with the patient?" the paramedic asked.

"We just saw him fainting," he answered. "I think he lives in the streets of the neighborhood sometimes, but I'm not really sure."

The paramedic shook his head. "Well, are you okay with being the guardian? What if he doesn't have a family?"

Matt had the same question. "I don't really know. But I am sure my conscience won't take it if something bad happened to him and we could have done something to help."

It was true. The man was about Matt's father's age and he could not bear to think the same thing happening to his Dad. Now that he thought about it, Matt did not think he would have done the same thing if it was just him who found this man on the street.

When he looked back on his phone screen, he realized he hit the CLEAR button by mistake and the number he was supposed to save to his contacts was gone.

Fortunately, the hospital was close and they were brought to the emergency room right after. The man indeed had a really low blood sugar, and seemed to have missed his insulin shots. Matt used the information on the man's driver's license he found on the man's wallet for the forms. It was almost an hour when he realized he should let his manager know.

Feeling exhausted, Matt sat on one of the chairs just as the nurse put an IV tube on the man, whose name was George Woo. He was about to fall asleep when his phone rang, showing his Manager, John Choi, calling him.

"What did you think you were doing?" was the first thing his manager said.

Matt moved away from the bed so he would not disturb the patient. "He was fainted on the street. What was I supposed to do, leave him there?"

"Which hospital are you?" Matt told him which hospital. "Stay there. Try not to talk to people as much as possible. I'm on my way. If the company hears about this, I don't know what they'll tell you."

"Well, I'm sure Jay-hyung will not like it if he heard his artists found a fainted sick man on the street and did not do anything. Hyung, if you were on the same situation, you'd probably do the same thing."

"What were you doing out and about in the first place?"

Matt saw a doctor coming their way, followed by two nurses. "Who is the guardian of George Woo?"

"Hyung, I gotta go," Matt told his manager. "We'll talk when you get here, okay?"

He could not help but feel sorry for their manager, who could have slept for a few more hours before he had to drive their group to the salon for their scheduled make-up. Instead, he had to deal with the incident that Matt got himself into, thanks to their new neighbor.

The doctor told Matt that the man could have died in less than an hour since he fainted if he was not given first aid and brought to the hospital as quickly as they had. He also assured Matt that the hospital was trying to contact the man's family, thanks to the information he gave them.

Matt did not realize how serious the situation was until he heard what the doctor said. For the second time in the day, he felt a little ashamed of himself because a fraction of him felt that he was wasting his time with involving himself in something that did not concern him. Somewhere out there, this man had a family member, worrying about him. He stared at his hands as he sat there, motionless, thinking what could have happened if he and Sam had not been there to help the man. What if the bus came earlier and Sam got in, and Matt just passed the man on the street? Would he have turned around and helped the man if it was just him?

After a few minutes, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was one of the nurses. She told Matt that the man's son was on his way to the hospital, all the way from Ilsan so it might take some time.

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hyung - a way of a male person addressing another male person older than him

~ssi – a term added to someone’s name when addressing the person politely

~nim – a term added to someone’s name when addressing the person with respect