On December 5, 2016 we released our third mini album Going Seventeen with the music video for our song Boom Boom. We were all really excited to see the fan’s response to the new music we released. Immediately on Youtube fans and causal listeners started commenting and the response was pretty positive.

“Our fans are seriously the best,” Seungcheol said as we crowded around a few laptops to look at the comments under the video. Since Youtube was mostly English dominated Joshua, Vernon, and I had to do a good amount of translating but it was worth it.

“I hope we’ll get a number one on a music show when we preform on them,” Seungkwan said crossing his fingers. The rest of us nodded our head hoping to win one trophy at least. This year had been the first year we’d gotten a number one on a music show. We didn’t have a lot at the moment but it didn’t matter to us.

After Youtube we went onto Naver to read the comments on the video posted on Naver. There was no translation needed for this website.

I now understood how exciting and nerve wracking it was when groups came back with new music. While the response was mostly positive there could be sometimes that the group didn’t live up to the expectations of the fans. So far it seemed that Carats liked everything we came out with so far.

When we finally did our first comeback on the music show it was so amazing to see all of the fans crowded to support the new song and us. And we eventually won three music shows with Boom Boom.

Because it was Decemeber all the end of the year music award shows were coming up and we were busy preparing for our performances. It was exciting to be performing and being nominated for awards. I was really hoping we’d win at least one of them. From already winning a Mama Award I was on an award show win high. There was honeslty no better feeling in the world then hearing our name called to receive a world in front of so many people and other musicians.

All of our performances had been so full of energy and we had finally approached the KBS Gayo Daechukje on January 1, 2017. Our performance had gone great and the fans had really loved it as usual and we were all waiting in the artist area, watching performances.

It had made me really happy to see Moonbin with his group Astro performing while we were sitting down. He looked so happy on stage and I wanted nothing but the best for his group. Everything was just going so perfectly.

“Oh my god,” Wonwoo gasped setting his phone down on the table. He glanced around nervously before tapping me on the shoulder. I turned to face him as he slid his phone over to me revealing a news article with Seventeen’s name on it.

“What is this?” I asked trying not to look too disrespectful not paying attention to the group performing on stage at the moment. I picked up Wonwoo’s phone before seeing a photo that made my heart stop.

The photo was of Joshua and I from the time we’d all went to Lotte World, with the two of us wearing those stupid animal headbands. We were smiling at each other and hugging, looking way more then just friends in the photo. I scrolled down a little more before seeing another photo of us sitting on the balcony of our dorm. How had any camera been able to spot us?

Every time we’d been out on the balcony of our room we’d been so careful to make sure no one saw us there we were in the picture, not just holding hands but engaged in a kiss. Joshua had his hands in my hair and I was pressed against him.

I read some of the words in the article, which were nothing more than questioning if the two of us were dating. Already the comments of the article were blowing up with people wanting to know what was going on. And glancing through some of the comments a lot of people were hurt and more so angry.

“No,” I said quietly. Before I could hand the phone back to Wonwoo Joshua’s hand snatched the phone out of my grasp. “Joshua don’t!”

“What is it?” Joshua asked already looking down at the phone. Wonwoo and I watched with scared eyes as his smiling expression turned into shock. He couldn’t help it as he dropped Wonwoo’s phone on the table. This caused everyone else to glance at the three of us.

There was no point in hiding the phone now as all of the other members started looking at the phone. Behind us our fans started talking. I was pretty sure they were now getting informed on the news, and the pictures had been spread all around the Internet. I could only sit there quietly in horror, as the talking behind us seemed to get louder. It was almost deafening.

“Oppa is it true?” a louder voiced fan asked from behind me. I turned around to see a majority of our fans seated behind us staring holes at us. “Are you and Joshua oppa dating?”

Mingyu turned around as well to face the fans as they all started shouting questions down at us. By now they were all so loud that other artists around us were starting to look over at us wondering what was going on.

“They’re gay!” someone in the group of fans yelled. “Joshua and Skyler are gay!” I turned around quickly seeing Joshua frantically getting up from his seat running away. We all watched with wide eyes, as he had to jut across the stage for everyone to see to make it backstage.

“Joshua!” I yelled. I gulped gathering up my courage before running out of my seat to go follow him. The two actors presenting on the stage shot me a confused and annoyed expression but I ignored them making my way backstage. The only thing on my mind was to find Joshua.

Luckily I didn’t have to search hard to find him curled up on the floor in the corner of our backstage dressing room. I closed the door kneeling down in front of him. Joshua glanced over at me before burying his face in his arms. From the quick glance at his face I saw his eyeliner was already running down his face as he shook from crying quietly.

“Joshua,” I said quietly. When I tried to take him into my arms he flinched away from me. I gasped in shock from his reaction finding my vision beginning to cloud with tears. “Joshua. I don’t know what happened. But please don’t lock me out.”

Seeing Joshua crying like this brought back the intense flood of memories from when I’d been exposed to everyone in school that I was gay. But my situation didn’t even compare to his since the whole world was going to now know that he was gay. It didn’t bother me as much but I was used to being openly gay, this was completely new to Joshua.

I kept quiet feeling tears roll down my face as I continued to watch Joshua break down unable to do anything to make him better. I turned around when I heard the door creaking open and the rest of our members shuffling into the room.

Slowly getting off of the ground I found Jeonghan’s arms around me hugging me tightly. I hadn’t even realized that my tears had turned more into silent sobs the longer I had watched Joshua sobbing on the floor.

“Our CEO contacted me,” Seungcheol said quietly as Jeonghan rubbed circles into my back. “He wants to meet with us now.”

“Let’s go then,” I sniffled. Jeonghan let go of me as I slowly helped Joshua get to his feet. Together all fourteen of us left the dressing room. As we made our way out to the two vans waiting for us I saw nothing but sympathetic looks coming from the other musicians standing along the hallway.

“Skyler,” Moonbin said grabbing onto my arm. Him and I exchanged glances as he patted me on the back lightly. “I’m so sorry this is happening to you.” I nodded my head before following everyone outside. I piled into one of the vans with Wonwoo, Mingyu, Minghao, Jeonghan, Seungcheol, and Joshua as we were wisked out of the parking lot in the direction of the Pledis company building.

The van ride was silent with no one really knowing what to say to make the two of us feel better. I grabbed Joshua’s hand holding it tightly in mine despite his attempt to try and break free from my grasp. By now Joshua had stopped crying but he was still sniffling quietly looking out the window.

When we got to the Pledis building we were met with a bombardment of news reporters and fans. A few security guards had to help us get to the door as everyone was screaming numerous questions at us.

“How could you do this?” one angry fan yelled as she threw our latest album directly at me. I barely missed it as it slid on the floor. “You turned Joshua gay! What a selfish bastard!”

“How long have the two of you been dating?” a reporter asked trying to stick their microphone in front of us. “Is it true that you two are really boyfriends?”

“Disgusting !” another fan yelled reaching out. She grabbed onto Joshua slapping him across the face as a security guard tried to push her back. “Take that stupid cross earring out of your ear!”

“Don’t listen to them!” Seungkwan yelled as the security pushed us inside of the building and away from the zoo that was outside.

We made our way to the big conference room where the CEO was already waiting for us. All of us took our seats as he looked around the table.

“The first question I want to know is if this is all true,” the CEO said in a quiet voice. The look on his face showed more confusion than anything else. When I made eye contact with he just smiled sadly over at me. Since Joshua still showed no signs of talking I guessed I had to be the voice for the both of us.

“Its true,” I said quietly looking down at the polished table. “Joshua and I are dating. We’ve been dating since around Mansae.”

“And did the rest of you know about their relationship?” the CEO asked looking at everyone else before zoning in on Seungcheol. He was the leader after all.

“We did,” Seungcheol answered with a firm nod. “We found out and we tried to keep it a secret. But somehow the press must have found out.”

“What’s going to happen?” a scared looking Chan asked as he looked at the CEO.

“For now we’re going to have you all lay low,” the CEO answered. He’d already come up with a plan for the time being. “But eventually we’ll hold a press conference to clear up things. As to admitting whether or not the relationship was true to the public has yet to be decided. For now just go home and try to sleep.”

That was our cue to go but I couldn’t leave just yet. Joshua was clutching his cheek from being hit by that girl and I wasn’t going to be able to sleep without saying one last thing.

“CEO,” I said getting out of my chair and getting down on my knees. Everyone let out a collective gasp as they watched me. “I know this is all my fault so please don’t put any of the blame onto Joshua. I don’t care what is said about me but please don’t let the media or the fans hurt him. Please…”

I bowed my head before getting off of the ground letting out a shaky breath. The CEO just nodded his head before I followed everyone out. I blocked out the screams as we made our way back inside of the vans heading back to our dorm.

As soon as we got back to the dorm everyone retreated to their rooms to sleep the rest of the day off. I followed Joshua down the hallway to our room as we shuffled inside. Joshua immediately fell down on the bed facing the wall so I was stuck looking at his backside.

“Are you going to keep ignoring me?” I asked sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Joshua please just talk to me. We can get through this together.”

I waited for a few minutes before he rolled over and our eyes met for the first time since earlier in the day. The area around his eyes were puffy and red from all the tears it made me want to reach out and hug him.

“What are the fans going to think?” Joshua asked in a barely audible voice. “No one is going to want to see me or you after this.”

“That’s not true,” I answered quickly. “If they are true Carats they would be happy for us. It might be shocking right now but I think they’ll come around eventually.”

“You don’t understand,” Joshua said shaking his head. “People lose a lot of fans when they announce their dating someone. And now everyone knows I’m dating a boy to make everything worse. That’s unthinkable in the k-pop world. It’s over for me.”

Listening to Joshua’s words really pained my heart because it was partly true. All the time I’d listened to k-pop there had never been a gay dating scandal. Korea wasn’t the most open and accepting society and now two members of one of the hottest rising boy groups had been exposed for dating. But to hear him so concerned about just himself made me feel so insignificant like he didn’t even care that I was also a part of this situation.

“It’s just about you right?” I asked unable to hide the bite and bitterness in my voice. “Because you had to date a . Because you fell for a .”

“Skyler no,” Joshua said immediately sitting up on the bed. I saw more tears crowding around the corners of his eyes. “You’re not that. I would never think that.”

“It’s over for you,” I continued unable to think properly anymore. “Because you’re the only one affected by this whole situation.” I got off the bed shaking my head. “I’m going to sleep on the couch.”

“Skyler wait,” Joshua begged beginning to cry again. I just ignored him as I grabbed my pillow off the bed leaving the room.

Once I was seated on the living room couch I felt myself crumbling as more tears found my eyes and started rolling down my cheeks. This had to be one of the worst days in my entire life. I lied down on the uncomfortable couch continuing to cry silently.

Sleep was hard to achieve as I would stop crying only to begin crying again. My mind couldn’t stop replaying the events of the evening. Not to the mention the couch was extremely uncomfortable and I wasn’t used to sleeping without Joshua. Without him pressed up against me I felt colder than I’d felt in a long time.

Around three o’clock in the morning I heard some footsteps coming from the hall. Sitting up on the couch wiping at my eyes I saw Mingyu entering into the living room. He smiled lightly at me before sitting down on the couch next to me.

“Skyler hyung,” he said softly. “Couldn’t sleep.” I just nodded my head as he kicked his feet up out in front of him.

“Me either,” I replied bringing my legs up to my chest and resting my head on my knees. “I feel like . And I got angry at Joshua and said some messed up things to him.”

Thankfully Mingyu didn’t pry into the details. I didn’t want to remember using such mean language towards Joshua. That was probably the part that was bothering me the most at the moment. I shouldn’t have gotten so mad at him about everything but at that moment I’d had a hard time keeping my emotions in check.

“I’m sure you’ll talk to him about it,” Mingyu said nodding his head. “I don’t want this situation to break the two of you apart.”

“Oh god no,” I gasped covering my cheeks with my hands. Just the thought that this whole situation could break up Joshua and I brought a fresh set of tears streaming down my face. Mingyu widened his eyes quickly wrapping his arms around me. We stayed silent as I continued to cry in Mingyu’s arms. I felt like Joshua and I had become so close and strong in our relationship that we weren’t going to let this one event break us apart. But what if I was wrong? What if the media and the fans broke us apart?

Late in the afternoon I woke up snuggled under the blankets of Joshua and mine’s bed. The curtains were pulled open letting in some sunlight. Opening my eyes I sat up in the bed as the door to the bedroom opened and Joshua slipped inside of the room, closing the door behind him.

“Joshua,” I began as he sat down on the bed. “Last night.” He just shook his head smiling lightly at me. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know you didn’t Skyler,” Joshua answered as he moved closer to me. He crawled his way under the blankets and I felt our legs brush against each other. “And its not just about me, we’re going to get through this together.”

Our hands connected under the covers as his hand gave mine a light squeeze. Immediately everything started to feel better now that Joshua was sort of back to normal. He wasn’t shutting me out and that was more than enough to put a smile on my face.

______________________

I'm now on summer break so I should be able to update this story more. I am looking to end this story sometime in the summer. 

The drama is now really going to be heating up! 

Thanks for being patient, 

alsk20