Another chapter of "You belong to me." Like always a big Thank You to Vapor for hunting down the errors and armies of wrongly placed commas. English punctuation rules are hard to stick to...
Chapter 6
Takeo tried to take in the wonder playing in front of his eyes while keeping watch on his charge. He didn't expect someone to actually try to hurt Suyi, but it was his duty to look after her. He had to admit that it was a hard task at the moment since his eyes were straying occasionally.
He had known that Suyi was an idol, and her concerts would put on some stage show. But he hadn't expected this level of technique, this many people and so many dancers and background singers. He had sorely underestimated how popular this girl was. In his eyes, she was just one of the kids, important because he held her dear and not because she was famous.
It was no surprise, really, since he saw her every day, and she didn't behave that differently from her friends. She was a bit more like an adult in her behaviour since she lacked the childish innocence that especially Yuna showered her environment with and she had a bit more confident than the other kids. Well, except for Shinwoo nobody wore himself with more confidence in everyday life than him.
But apart from those small differences, Suyi always had been just that: Im Suyi, a teenage girl, he felt fond of. And now he stood at the backstage entry to the stage watching as a dozen dancers jumped around during a cheerful song, Suyi gracefully and sometimes seductively dancing in their midst, only to hear her afterward sing a story about two star-crossed lovers. The same dancers acted out the story in time with her words, totally changing the mood.
It was hard to keep track of all the people in this organized chaos. There were the dancers in Suyi's immediate proximity, cameramen took some test shots to find the best angles, and all around there were people building last minute things for the concert tomorrow night. The only people not hurrying back and forth were probably the director for the show, who stood in front of the stage, and the other security guards beside Takeo. There weren't that many security measurements today since this was only a rehearsal, not a concert, but it seemed like the manager had made sure that the security department had their test-run at the time Suyi was around, too. Even though he could properly take care of her by himself, Takeo would make sure to thank Young-Jae for this later.
Takeo let his gaze wander again. The director of the concert stood in front of the stage and shouted orders even louder than the music, a feat in itself since the volume was almost deafening. The next time he would accompany Suyi to a rehearsal, Takeo promised himself to remember packing earplugs. Further down the aisle between the seats the man responsible for, the electronics assembly briefed three of his helpers. At the end of the hall, two security men were inspecting the fire door to make sure it was working in case of emergency.
On stage Suyi had just started another song, a lively and upbeat piece, the stage dyed in changing colours. As Suyi turned in one of her dance moves, he could see her face properly, and the pure joy she emanated was almost palpable. The dancers retreated to this piece of music, setting the focus on Suyi's performance and the light show, and…
His gaze flew up. There was something. A shadow sidled through the lighting installations high above the stage. At this time, none of the lighting engineers should be on one of the walkways. Or was someone readjusting last settings now that Suyi was on stage and faults would be seen? Takeo strained his eyes to get a better look of the man; he came to that conclusion because of height and the way the person moved; but the spotlights were blinding him. A normal person wouldn't have been able to see anything at all with that harsh lights, Takeo assumed.
One of the spotlights quivered. It was a spontaneous reaction that catapulted Takeo forward. His eyes took in the likely point of impact of the spotlight, the line of sight of the camera, and Suyi's figure in the course of an instance. Too many people were around to use his superhuman speed to its fullest, but he would rather blow his cover than to let Suyi get injured.
Suyi eeped in surprise as he tackled and wrapped his arms protectively around her. She didn't know what was going on; she had danced up to this moment, but Takeo felt her hands instinctively grab his suit jacket instead of fighting him as he swept her off her feet. He felt something brush his arm, then the spotlight crashed with a thunderous bang into the stage.
Everything around him stopped as the hall quieted eerily. Only the music of Suyi's songs and the echo of the crash could be heard. As the stagehands and dancers finally overcame their shocks and started moving towards them, Takeo had already set Suyi down and crouched next to her as her legs were too shaky to keep her upright. Carefully, he cupped her face with his hand and forced her to look at him.
"Are you alright?" Physically she was fine, he knew. He had made sure of that. The frozen way she had stared over his shoulder at the broken spotlight made him worry, though. A few seconds trickled away before Suyi's gaze focussed on him. Her eyes were wide in shock, and he felt her start to tremble under his hand that now rested reassuringly on her shoulder. People were gathering around them, but Takeo kept his eyes on the girl.
"I... I'm alright," she whispered. The following silent "thank you" was drowned out by the aghast outshout of one of the dancers crowding around them. Takeo looked down on his left arm where a part of the spotlight seemed to have brushed him. There was no blood, but the cloth was torn almost up to the elbow.
Takeo made a face. Frankenstein would glare at him and take the costs of a new suit out of his next pay-check. More importantly, Tao would snicker and add this suit jacket and button down shirt to the "clothes passed away in the line of duty" list. Sometimes Tao's humour was quite morbid. Suyi seemingly mistook his grimace for a sign of pain because she asked if it hurt a lot with tears clearly shining in her eyes. Smiling at her and telling her that it was only a small bruise didn't seem to work. If possible it made her only more distraught.
Takeo had no time to think about the man up on the walkway or if this had been an accident or not. He was occupied with stopping the crew from calling an ambulance and Suyi from repeatedly apologizing. The security guards were taking care of the "accident" anyway, and Suyi was more important.
This was one of the first moments that Takeo was glad that his healing ability was weaker than that of M-21. His lower arm and wrist showed an angry red bruise that seemingly everybody in the crew fussed over. His comrade would have only taken a few minutes to heal and somehow Takeo felt that he wouldn't be able to escape the attention for a little while longer, especially Suyi didn't stray from his side.
For a few more moments, he allowed the other humans to chatter, but as the guilt-stricken lightning engineer, who was responsible for the spotlights, tried to guide him to a chair, a border was clearly overstepped.
"Enough. I'm alright." At the disbelieving looks around him, he rolled his eyes and added "really" with a sigh. One of the security men finally took it into his hands to shooed the gawking crowd back to their respective work. His colleagues were occupied with the spotlight, and somehow Takeo feared there would be police around if his assumption that someone helped the spotlight to fall down was true.
He accepted the freezer pack one of the handyman forced upon him and held it to his arm. It only stung a bit, and Takeo knew that he had to get his arm out of the line of sight soon. The director of the concert unknowingly helped him with that since he asked Takeo to bring Suyi home to let her take the rest of the day off. The girl was too flustered to concentrate, although she was holding it together quite well so far.
A car was called and behind the safety of tinted windows, Suyi finally broke out into tears. She had been scared, and she felt guilty for the bruise that had already disappeared below his make-shift bandage. Takeo exchanged a distraught look with the driver. How to appease a crying girl?
Takeo reached over and patted her head only to have her lean over and cry into his shoulder, carefully avoiding to touch his presumably injured arm. Suyi had nothing of the adult-like lively idol anymore. Instead, she looked younger than her years in the way she was seeking refuge in the fabric of his suit jacket. Quietly, he whispered calming words to the child while inside of him a storm was brewing.
The falling spotlight could have severely harmed her. Someone was getting serious out there, and with every strangled sob he heard from the girl, he was less inclined to let the police handle this.