Chapter 1: A Grave Mistake

White walls, white sheets, white light, the room was bright and it almost blinded him when he had woke up with a headache. The warmth and light peeked through the cracks between the curtains. He was at a loss as the room felt like it was spinning, he closed his eyes as the world seemed too bright for him.

What did he do last night again?

He tried to recall with his still disoriented brain. It took him long seconds before he get quick flashbacks from yesterday—driving the car, with his cousin, getting in a party, getting drunk and—

He opened his eyes as he fully remembers the event from last night; he turns around to find a lump under the white sheets. Carefully and uncertainly, he lifted the covers to take a peek and he bit down the groan as he sees a bundle of messy hair and a face he didn’t recognize. It also took him a moment to realize that he was shirtless.

In that exact moment, his phone rings from who knows where and he grunts as he forces his heavy and tired body to sit up, a wave of nausea hitting him. He resisted the urge to puke—just how many had he drunk? He doesn’t even remember drinking any alcoholic drinks. His cousin must’ve had added spiked his drink then.

He finds a pile of clothes lying on the floor and he scrunches his nose slightly at the unsightly mess his room currently is before he manages to find his ringing phone under it. A quick glance from the contact and he knew he’s going to be dead, “Hello.”

“Taekwoon! Where are you now? You’re going to be late for the photo shoot! The staff are getting impatient, and most importantly, Miss Cheonsa has been waiting too long.” He could hear his manager hiss on the other side of the phone, “And don’t take this personally but, you sound like . Did you just wake up?”

The man, Taekwoon, nodded his head before he remembered that he was on the phone before he replied with a curt and quiet, “Yes.”

“You know I hate to rush you but now, hurry up and come here.” His manager said, “And at least make yourself presentable.”

Taekwoon hummed his reply before ending the call. To say he was not feeling well was an understatement, in fact, he felt like his body had just been run over by a truck several times. He was tempted to just dive in to his sheets and forget about his worries, it didn’t matter if his manager would scold him because he was exhausted. But then he remembered the sleeping stranger on his bed and that alerted his mind again as he racked his brain to what happened last night in the party.

He tries to recall but all he gets is nothing other than the memories of last night’s unpleasant noise—he had never been fond of loud parties like his cousin was. It had been dangerous for him, a celebrity, to sneak out one night to attend a party but his cousin had forced him to do so. And now he has a problem—a really huge problem.

If his manager finds about this, he’s dead. If the CEO does, he’s double dead. And if the media finds out, he’ll have to kiss his music and acting goodbye.

His phone rings again and he’s finally aware of the time and his duties again. He declines the call from his manager, sending a short text that he’s coming. He settles with washing his face, picking out decent clothes, and other things to look presentable. His eyes travel to the stranger before his eyes land on a notepad and a pen.

Taking both, he scribbles a short message before he leaves, hoping that the girl wouldn’t turn out to be a burglar. He informs his maid of the stranger before he abruptly leaves.

The day went fine, he was scolded by his manager of course but the photo shoot with Kim Cheonsa had been well. The photo shoots were expected to be seen in the cover of the next magazine release. Cheonsa was not too secretive with her attraction towards Taekwoon as she’d often compliment him in everything he does and she tries too hard to impress him. He wanted to push her away but he decided against it. He’ll get scolded again so he’ll endure it until the whole thing ends.  

As soon as it ended, he immediately left with a quick goodbye and respectful bows to the staff. He gets another round of scolding from his manager, to which he only nods absentmindedly until the manager decides it’d be useless. The rest of the drive went quiet.

The remaining of the day went uneventful aside from the usual schedule. He writes a new song and they discuss things for his upcoming album. He’s informed with his future schedule—all the shows he will attend to, the meetings, the photo shoots and the list adds on. Sometimes Taekwoon wonders if he should’ve just took another job instead of the entertainment industry. But as soon as the thought crossed, he pushed it away.

He loves music and he doesn’t regret his job.

Later at night, he returns home with his room empty and there were no evidences of the stranger’s stay in his room. Nothing was out of place and things were how it normally were. He preferred it that way. He doesn’t remember what had happened during his time with the girl but he decides that it’s better this way. Things were going to be fine and everything would be back as if none of this fiasco had ever happened. He’d continue his job with his stage name, Leo, and perform for his music for the world to see.

But of course, the problem didn’t introduce itself before weeks later when his manager had shoved a phone in front of him, disturbing his concentration in writing his lyrics, and asked, “What’s this?”

Taekwoon glanced at the manager’s face before he took the phone from the older’s hand and scrolled through the article. His face, usually calm and unreadable, morphed into one of confusion. Reflected in his dark eyes were of horror and disbelief. He blinks rapidly, trying to see if this was a lie or was he dreaming. But the scowl on his manager’s face and the taunting article was too real and he felt like he wanted the earth to swallow him whole.

An intermission of a few seconds, that felt like a long-stretch of eternity to Taekwoon, before the suffocating silence was broken by his manager’s voice, “Is this true? This rumor—that you slept with a girl?”

Taekwoon wanted to speak, but his voice was caught in his throat and he couldn’t let a sound out.

“And not just any girl, she’s a minor! Taekwoon, do you get this? Not only are you harming your reputation and job but you’re probably going to jail too.” The manager said, panic and anger evident in his voice, “And no, we can’t shrug this off as a fraud because she uploaded selcas of you have beside her.”

But how? Don’t tell me something really happened between us. Taekwoon internally wonders. He doesn’t remember anything from that night, was he really too drunk to do something that would break his morals? He doesn’t remember and he’s confused.

“I wish we could just label this as a photoshop edited but it looks so damn real.” The manager cusses, combing a hand through his messy hair as he heaved a heavy sigh, “The CEO is gonna kill me for this. When did this happen anyway? I didn’t remember of you getting somewhere—wait, was this because of that one night weeks ago where you asked to leave early?”

“My cousin.” Taekwoon spoke softly, “I was invited to a party.”

“And you got drunk?” The manager continued, watching as Taekwoon nodded hesitantly, “Gosh, Taekwoon I thought you were smarter than this! I thought you’d know how dangerous that would be for you, and now look! We have a problem at hand.”

But I didn’t even know how I got drunk. I don’t remember drinking anything too alcoholic. Taekwoon wanted to say but he decided to keep quiet.

“We’ll fix this.” His manager spoke up after a while, “I’ll find a way to clear this problem. As for the mean time, we’re canceling all of your schedules and you stay inside unless I tell you, got that?”

A nod.

“As much as I hate doing this, but we need to avoid the media for now.”

Wouldn’t that arise more suspicion though? It’d seem like I’m guilty. Taekwoon wonders before he shakes his head and just agrees.

The next days, the news were all over the internet. It was one of the hottest topics—Leo, a mysterious, quiet gentleman with a passion for music sleeping with a minor. Some had taken it as an opportunity to bring him down, his haters were bashing all over his social accounts. He decided to stay away from those. But he also had loyal fans, defending him and who believed in him. He was thankful for them.

He was constantly informed by his managers how to deal with the problem and as far, the uploader had deleted their photos and posts of him and the stranger. But as soon as you commit a mistake in the internet, you can never take it back anymore. It kept the people talking and the media was persistent in forcing Taekwoon to speak so he didn’t come out. His manager said that the girl has been dealt with, agreeing to keep quiet about the event and was willing to tell everyone that it had been a lie and the photo was edited.

“How did you get her to agree?” Taekwoon couldn’t help but ask.

“You have no idea how much money can control one person. Just gave a huge offer and she and her mother agreed on the terms. She will tell everyone now that she lied about you and her.” The manager said, “She will say that it had been an edit done by a very talented photoshoper.”

“You know that not everyone will believe that.” Taekwoon said.

“I know, so we’ve also had another plan.” The manager said, and this perked Taekwoon’s curiosity as he asked. The manager replied, “Tomorrow, come to the company, but make sure to be discreet about it.”

Lee Jaehwan was a solo artist for two years and still doesn’t have enough recognition. Anyone barely knows his stage name as Ken and he’s considered as one of the most underrated artists there is. His music was beautiful but has yet to get a good publicity. In the competitive entertainment industry, he was contracted with a less known company.

And he’s facing a grave problem as of now. His three year-grace period is coming to its near end and he still lacks enough recognition. It's kind of an unspoken rule of thumb in the industry that if a singer or group hasn't had any successful hits or any kind of notoriety within the first three years of their debut, they're pretty much never going to have any success.

Jaehwan was afraid that he was going to stop the job he loves and go back to college to look for another vocation. No, he loved music too much to have that. He can’t imagine himself in books learning English, calculating math and discovering Science. It’s not to say that he’s dumb, the life as a celebrity was difficult but he wouldn’t endure it if he didn’t love what he was doing.

He was more than willing to do anything to save his job and here he is now, in front of Jellyfish Company where his manager had called for him to come. He was greatly confused at first but he was told that he would be given an offer that would help him get the recognition he wanted, he needed.

He was nervous when he entered the room where he was supposed to meet his manager and someone else. He smiled kindly towards everyone as he told himself that he can do it. They were told to wait for a moment as someone else was supposed to come and they were important. Jaehwan shuffled in his seat as he agreed to wait painfully slow.

Seconds, minutes ticked by before the door finally opened and a dark haired man entered the room. Jaehwan immediately felt like his lungs seized to function properly at the sight of the man before him. It was the Leo. And the said man acknowledged him with a nod and he smiled I response. It wasn’t his first time being with the man, as he had met him once in a show, but he was still overwhelmed by his presence, considering the difference in their status.

Jaehwan tries his best to focus on the middle-aged man, whom he learned was the Leo’s manager, about the purpose of this meeting. But the whole time, he was admiring the person before him. He thinks that what the people say about Leo were all true, he was handsome, mysterious and his presence was overwhelming.

But his attention was back at the manager when he speaks words that caused both Jaewhan’s and Taekwoon’s eyes to widen in utmost surprise.

“So we have decided that it would benefit both of you to pretend that you were engaged.” 

And that's the first chapter, folks! How was it? Was it bad? good? average? Please tell me so ^-^ I don't mind criticisms so if you spot out any mistake, inconsistency or basically anything wrong in general, whether it be the pace, the flow, or the grammatical errors and typos just feel free to point out. It's actually comforting if you do comment <3 But I'm not forcing tho xD I'll be happy if you guys enjoyed reading this. 

Sad to say but this is not an idol oife with VIXX as a group for plot convinience. The other members will make an appearance soon tho. Taekwoon and Jaehwan are both solo artists with the stage names Leo and Ken respectively. And problems arise and the only way for it to be solved is through this. The plot will bloom from there~

With lots of love, 
Chrysallion