“Well, we are royally ed and there is nothing we can do about it. Good going, Sandeul. What can you possibly up this time?” Gongchan groaned as he flopped on the couch, his body sprawled as he hid from the other members, knowing he was no better.

            “Sandeul, I must say… What. The. Actual. . Were you thinking?!” Baro scolded, pinching the bridge of his nose, vexed to the point where his usually calm and welcoming demeanor was washed away with anxiety and anger. Sandeul and the rest of the room, winced at the remark, the former crippled with guilt and conflicting emotions.

            “Hey now, hey now, I think we can fix this. Look, they are respectable people and this is show business. Misunderstandings like this happen all the time,” Shinwoo injected some reality and much needed optimism into the otherwise bleak situation. You marveled at his calm though you knew from experience that EXO-Ls unlike yourself and Alex were a force to be reckoned with and if anything made the resolution difficult, it was them and not the actual band.

            “He’s right. I mean, EXO seem cool,” you started. You glanced over to Sandeul who clinched his fist at the mention of any humanity in whom he saw as cold, lucrative robots. Then, you glanced at Alex, her head in her palms as she sat quietly across from you. “They are. Well, most of them. Look, what I’m saying is, anything is fine with the right kind of press release right? And if there is anything that we need to look out for, it’s those damn EXO-Ls. They will make this more difficult than anything,” you explained rationally.

            “So, what do you suggest that we do then? We’ve never had a scandal like this before—or any scandal for that matter,” Jinyoung admitted softly.

            “Then we should all have a warm welcome to the big leagues. Getting noticed for all the wrong reasons, courtesy of Sandeul,” Gongchan jabbed again. A tear pricked at the corner of Sandeul’s usually bright eyes. Before he could roll of another insult, Baro had thrown a thrown a cushion from one of the dining room tables his way.

            “Well, aren’t any of you guys friends with the EXO members?” you asked, hiding your desperation knowing there was little to no way that you guys could come in contact with them again if not for connections between the two. The room was silent.

            “I like to think that we are, but now, I’m not so sure,” Shinwoo croaked anxiously, shifting in his seat.

            “How about one of us just talks to management about this and they can tell us what to do. We’re going to need a lot of help with this,” Jinyoung confessed. You sighed, but figured, as a life coach to a naïve, often gullible and often too cheerful twenty year old dongsaeng, solving complicated issues like the one at hand may not necessarily fall in your area of expertise.

            “Well, if no one has anything else to say, I guess we wait,” Baro scoffed, glaring at the silent Sandeul if only for a second before flashing a lazy, halfhearted peace sign before resigning to his room. Jinyoung and Shinwoo sighed a sigh of resignation as the latter threw his arm gently around you and rested his head on yours. Jinyoung flashed a weak smile before joining Baro, leaving the rest of you to your own devices. You tried your best to console your boyfriend, immersed in your own world with him until Alex abruptly yet quietly excused herself from the table and disappeared through the door, hoping no one took note of her. You knew where she was going but knew that she wanted to be alone and the least you could do was grant her that courtesy. Moreover, your boyfriend had not much life in him either and between the two, you figured you could cheer him up easier. You nodded at Sandeul and excused yourself and Shinwoo from the table, interlacing your fingers with Shinwoo’s as the two of you walked to your room. There was no fighting the morose atmosphere so the best thing to do was leave it. There was no forgetting it, but maybe it would die just like your dreams of a smooth adventure in Korea with your favorite band, but when was life ever smooth?

 

 

            A week had passed and the seven of you were afraid to go outside of the dorm for anything. Promotions were over by now as they had culminated in the MAMA Awards and it was not musical or drama season just yet. Halfway through the week, you thought it would be a good idea to go for a stroll, hoping the hysteria had calmed down, until even one of the guards charged with getting groceries for you all had come back pelted in leaves and trash that you could only assume rabid fans had barraged him with. Alex was hardly seen throughout the week, glimpses of her ghostly figure ghosting the halls and stopping only for sleep. Most of the time, she was downstairs and everyone was too afraid to go down there. They had seen her when she was deep in thought, but they had never seen her when she was hurt and the combination of the two feelings petrified most of you. As you nursed Shinwoo’s smile and sense of humor back to health, you understood that Alex was just dealing with the problem in her own way and you handled it in your own way. You knew there was no cure for a broken heart like hers and there was no replacement for a shattered ego so you understood that flaunting your perfect relationship with Shinwoo would not help anyone. Similarly, Sandeul barely inched out of his room and you could swear he had smuggled a mini fridge into there so he wouldn’t have to see the light of any of your faces. Gongchan sulked as if he was the victim, as if his heart was ripped from his chest and trampled on by the love of his life, only to see his reputation shaken by scandal. Though the entire group was aching from the scandal, you knew Gongchan had no real reason to complain or to demean Sandeul for what he had done. Sandeul was wrong. This, he knew, but Gongchan was by no means helping anyone and his indifferent attitude was suffocating, irritating, so much so that you had entertained the thought of slapping him on more than one occasion. Knowing the seven of you would eventually kill each other in the cage of tension, you suggested a movie night, but to no avail. You understood, but you didn’t want to have to. Time would have to tell and you couldn’t tell it to tell you anything it didn’t want to. You just hoped something would give eventually.

            “Alex, you’re really going to hurt yourself down here. Look at you, you’re losing weight. You haven’t been eating well, have you?” you sighed, generally concerned as you stood in the doorway of the dance room. Your eyes connected with hers in the mirror as the music continued to blare. She didn’t bat an eye at your intrusion nor did she act like she was going to heed anything that you suggested. Instead, she just kept dancing, kept pushing herself to the brink of near exhaustion. Realizing she was not paying attention to you, but was instead only slave to the music, you sauntered over to her phone, easily unlocked it and turned off the Bluetooth, immediately stopping the music on her three connected speakers. She slumped to the floor, dropping to her knees almost as if she had long given up. She lolled her head to look back at you, her eyes that of a zombies as sweat poured down her face and continued to drench her shirt. “Look at you. You’re a mess. You know this isn’t going to help anything,” you pointed out correctly.

            “It’s exercise~” she moaned, hacking before she scrambled for her water bottle, almost collapsing in the meantime, which she quickly tried to play off like she was trying to stretch.

            “You’re going to yourself up down here. Look, I have no idea how any of this feels for you, but I can say dancing your heart and soul out is not going to make anything better. What is that gonna prove to Xiumin? It just proves that he had that much power over you. There’s a difference between being fangirl trash and just being trash,” you explained.

            “But I am trash! I’m trash, trash, trash, in every sense of the world. I can’t do anything right and I had no right accepting this job. Who did I think I was? Just because I can maybe dance doesn’t mean I belong here. Maybe, I came here for the wrong reasons, but whatever my motivation was then is not what it is now and right now, I’m suffering. Trash can have feelings, too and honestly, I don’t know what to do with mine,” she rambled, her eyes threatening to spill tears as she stared at herself in the mirror. She quickly swiped her arm across her eyes to reveal her bloodshot eyes, but still refused to look at you. You bit your lip, trying not to cry yourself as you approached her and squatted behind her before lying a hand on her shoulder. You searched for words, but knew nothing could make her feel better. She was on a suicide mission, trying to kill the feelings that she knew still consumed her. You swallowed hard before whispering a soft yet sincere “Take care” and rising to leave. She nodded but once as she foolishly climbed back to her feet and reached for her phone to reconnect. You left as the music filled the room, not bothering to look back at her because she wasn’t at you. She was looking at no one, nothing more than the reflection of a heartbroken soul that thought it could hide from the world from working its way to the top.

            Hours passed before the door to the dance room crept open once more. You had brought her a sandwich about an hour after you left the first time, which she smiled at and at appreciatively once you had gone, but besides that, it was just her and her thoughts for the longest time. She didn’t turn back or look, assuming that it was only you telling her that it was getting close to time for her to take a shower and go to sleep considering she had been up at 6 in the morning and down there. Her body moved fluidly to her favorite song “Black Pearl,” which ripped her apart with every graceful movement of her limbs, but yet, she kept going. She heard something, a faint singing, but figured it was the smooth yet overlooked vocals of Suho or Xiumin that she usually could not pick up on. She still did not look at the mirror. She didn’t want to see the husk that she had become. The singing became louder, more velvety and emotional. The louder. And louder. Soon, it filled the room, drowning her and the voices of those that had hurt her. She was afraid to look in the mirror, to turn around. She knew who it was, but didn’t know what he was doing there. What did he have to say that would comfort her? Then, the music stopped as he unlocked her phone and turned off the Bluetooth once more. The words kept flowing, his angelic voice filling her. She sank to her knees and finally looked at the mirror to find Sandeul still singing, looking down at her. He sat next to her, his head boldly on her shoulder as he continued to sing, his voice lower but just as soft. She stay there, frozen and confused. Then, the song stopped. She slowly turned to look at him and he smiled trepidly at her, afraid of what she would say. Silence. Inhaling deeply, he finally took it upon himself to break the silence.

            “Alex,” he started, simply but boldly. She made not a sound. He lifted his head so that he could properly look at her.

            “What do you want?” she managed before coughing and reaching for her water bottle.

            “I wanted—want—to say a lot of things,” he confessed, quickly looking down before finding his courage again. She raised any eyebrow.

            “Would could you poss-?”

            “Just hear me out. Above all, I know that I was wrong and that I had no right to do that but the way that he treated you-“

            “How do you know about that?” she snapped.

            “I saw you that night when I was coming from the bathroom. I just couldn’t deal with the way that he was—“

            “So you punch him? At the MAMAs? On international television? When you are from a group about as big as my thumb here in Korea?”

            “What else was I supposed to do?” She opened , frown already deepening. “That’s not what I meant. Look, can’t you tell that I-I, I like—maybe even love—you? How could I stand by and watch someone who deserved so much better be treated like that? I couldn’t let him take away my smile, your smile.” She inhaled deeply, her mind swimming partially from exhaustion and partially from whatever Sandeul was saying. Her head lolled repeatedly until she collapsed in his lap, her eyes barely open. He merely smiled to himself, her hair as she caught her breath and her sense. “I know that was a really bad decision and it got all of us into hot water, but I will do anything for you and the group. I just want this whole thing to be over and let it be like how things were when you first got here. Remember what a fun time that was?” She merely groaned, obviously not trying to be cute as she would usually be. “I want it to be like when I didn’t know that you loved someone else and that were friends so that we could maybe be more than friends. Am I sad that this happened? Yes, I truly am. If it were between me and him, if he treated you properly, I would want you to be happy with him by all means. But am I happy that this happened, too? Of course. I hope you realize how important you are to me and how much you deserve to smile. I know I’m being cheesy here and all but—“ A muffled snore caught him off guard, halting him. He giggled to himself and casually shook her awake. “Come on, doll. Let’s get upstairs. You’re really tired,” he whispered before kissing her lightly on the forehead.

            “, sorry, man,” Sandeul started after he accidently bumped into a speeding bullet of a man as he helped you to the elevator. “What are you doing down here this late?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at Gongchan, who had slipped his phone into his back pocket after the collision.

            “I just wanted some peace and quiet is all. They insisted on watching a movie and that’s just not me. I should ask you the same thing,” he shrugged, nodding his head at Alex, but all bitterness in his voice seemingly gone. “Get her up there safely,” he added as the elevator beeped and the door opened. Sandeul frowned in confusion for a split second but nodded with a quick smile before the doors closed on the two of them. Alone, Gongchan smiled to himself.

            “Wake up, wake up!” Gongchan exclaimed excitedly, nearly jumping on your bed and shaking the two of you out of it. “I already woke up the others, but hurry up and get dressed. We have somewhere to go. It’s important and we can’t be late or that will make us look worse than how we already do,” he babbled, barely taking a breath between words as he rummaged through Shinwoo’s closet and quickly picked out something nice considering Shinwoo’s go-to style was casual and this was nothing to be casual about. As you gradually rolled out of bed, you saw him flash a few smiles your way, none of them sleazy or disconcerting. They were gentle and sweet, just like how he used to be and how was possibly being this time around.

            “Can you just explain where we’re going?” Baro asked, still tired though he looked dashing in his pressed vest and dark jeans.

            “No time to explain, but just trust me here. Can any of you guys do that?” he asked, hint of guilt inching into his voice. He didn’t wait for a response before he swung open the door and led the way downstairs. “Don’t worry about anything you might see downstairs. It’ll be a little busy but just keep moving and no worries. The guards are with us so no one will get hurt. Just trust me, here,” he ordered kindly, still leading the way, looking back at the other six of you happily. You glanced at Alex who was wearing a smile along with her nice outfit, which warmed your heart. Sandeul had long since relaxed as he had his arm over her and for once, you thought everything was fine, but then again, you didn’t know what to expect anymore. The only thing you wanted was to take a picture of the perfection—Jinyoung, sleepy yet flawless, Baro sleepy yet still a fluff, Gongchan cheerily leading the way, his tiny swaying as he nearly strutted, full of a confidence that had left him for the last few months, Sandeul smiling brightly like he always used to, your best friend actually not complaining about how early it was, and Shinwoo, your loving boyfriend on your side, fingers laced as he smiled happily at you.

            “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” Gongchan urged, waving you all outside the car once you had gotten where you needed to go. Still confused, but already at the destination, you just went along with it and filed into the high end restaurant.

            “Holy , are people like us even allowed in here?” Shinwoo scoffed in awe.

            “Of course we are. What part of the big leagues don’t you understand?” Gongchan giggled, not at all trying to make Sandeul feel bad.

            “So, you never told us what we are doing here?” Jinyoung reminded him, asking still.

            “Ah, so you’re the other part of the table for 16? No problem, right this way,” the hostess greeted you kindly before leading you to your seats. And then you saw them.

            “Hi, so nice to meet you guys one on one. I would like to get this whole scandal out of the way as soon as possible and I think we are all rational people…” you could hear the manager ramble on as the seven of you sat, Alex obviously the furthest away from Xiumin. You looked at Gongchan, who was nodding and smiling as he chatted with Suho and introduced the rest of you before the latter did the same. You smiled cheerfully before clicking your tongue knowingly at Gongchan. He had finally done something. The flashes of the photography and the smell of delectable food made you and Shinwoo feel more special than ever, a feeling you didn’t mind having after so long. As Gongchan and Sandeul talked their ways out of trouble, you and the others all mingled, talking about your favorite songs from each group and generally having a good time. Then, as soon as it had started and with the flash of a few more cameras, the press release was over and though nothing had immediately been reported, you felt the weight of the world rise off of your shoulders.

            “So, that was that?” Sandeul asked, confused yet obviously happy.

            “Yeah, that was it, buddy,” Gongchan assured him, hugging him tightly.

            “And why didn’t you tell any of us this?” Shinwoo asked, astonished yet proud of the boy.

            “Well, I didn’t want to hear anything like it was a bad idea,” he shrugged.

            “How did you though?” Baro interjected.

            “As you can see, I know Suho. We’ve been friends for years. We’re even in a group chat, but we’re all so busy that we don’t have the time to actually do anything. I love him and he loves me. Plus, he owed me a favor from back in our trainee days,” he explained. “And he knows us. He knows we don’t want any violence or anything bad like that,” he added.

            “So, you just went behind our backs like that?” Jinyoung asked.

            “Don’t say it like that. I did this for us.”

            “I know, but I just wanted you to feel a little guilty after all that sass you had earlier. Is everything better with you now?” Jinyoung snickered, ruffling the younger member’s hair playfully. Gongchan nodded, fighting back a squeal as he clenched something in his hand.

            “What’s that, bro?” Baro asked, pointing at the item, which Gongchan immediately tried to hide behind his back. Without asking, Sandeul immediately ticked the younger member under he dropped it, which Alex promptly and smoothly picked up before giggling.

            “02 490-2316,” she read aloud. “Hyo-Minh~” she added, still chuckling. “Awww, look at that, Gongchan snagged someone’s number! It was the pretty manager wasn’t it,” she teased. Gongchan blushed.

            “So ~that’s~ why you set up this meeting, huh? I see, it was all for the girl? Suho sunbaenim told you that there was a pretty manager and saving our butts was just a bonus, huh?” Shinwoo jested, nudging the younger boy in the shoulder playfully.

            “Yah~ It’s not like that~” Gongchan blushed furiously, much to all of your amusement.

            “So, when do you go out with her?” Baro asked, winking.

            “I haven’t even texted her yet!” he retorted, still embarrassed.

            “Well, it’ll just have to wait because we have celebrating to do! Let’s eat!” Sandeul cheered, pinching Alex’ cheeks as she cheered along.

            “We just ate~ How are you guys still hungry?” Jinyoung asked, genuinely confused. You lay a hand on his shoulder and shook your head.

            “Just let it be. Plus, they have the right idea! We have the day to ourselves and things and the weather are clearing up. Let’s go to the beach or something,” you suggested, automatically gaining the crew’s approval. “Let’s live a little.”