Maria

"Maria! Your phone keeps going off!" Lilly called from the living room. With the half eaten sandwich hanging from my mouth and a glass of cola I made my way over to her, taking my phone from the coffee table. I unlocked it, tapping on the screen to open the first notification that popped up. 

My eyes widened at the topic of the article, and choked on the cola I was having.

"Hey, what happened?!" Lilly exclaimed, surprised. Eva came out of her room at the same time.

I was silent as I showed them the article. The headline in itself was enough to shock them there and then.

"JACKSON WANG CAUGHT OUT ON A DATE" it said.

Following it were a bunch of pictures of me and Jackson at lunch a few days ago. My eyes widened at the rapid increase in my followers on both instagram and Twitter. Lilly was reading over the article quietly, with a frown on her face. Even my SNS was exploding with pictures of Mark, Jackson and some even of BamBam and I. Scrolling up, the only thing I saw was pictures or screenshots of articles about the AmeriThaiKong and I, more pictures and some hate messages. Pulling up the contacts, I called the only person I could think of, Park Jinyoung.

"Hello?" He picked up and sounded out of breath.

"Jinyoung-ah! Have you been on the internet? Instagram, twitter, SNS, Facebook? Anywhere? I can't believe it would happen so quickly, I mean we were barely out together what with your schedule and practices and whatnot," I began to ramble, panicked, "Oh my god what am I gonna do? I can't believe this is actually happening. It's like a badly written fan fiction come true! Oh my God, I don't even--"

"MinHee-ah, calm down," Jinyoung said suddenly and I halted, "Wh even happened?"

"Ask Mark to go on SNS." I bit my lip as he spoke to Mark off the phone. A few seconds passed and Jackson's voice shouted,  "Holy--!"

"Yeah..." I slumped down on the couch, "what are we gonna do?"

"Don't worry. We'll talk to our manager. Nothing is going to happen." He assured and Eva rubbed my back.

"But Jinyoung," I whined and heard a shuffle.

"It will be okay MinHee. Just take deep breaths... and manager-nim says not to reply or take anything to heart." Jaebum suddenly told me. 

"Okay," I sighed. Maybe this is the universe's revenge for trying to set Youngjae and Lilly up all stupidly.

"Let me talk to Eva." I gave my phone to Eva and she gave me a smile before walking to the kitchen. 

I tried my best to forget about the whole incident for a while.

As I was settled into my bed and reading a novel, my phone began ringing. I placed the bookmark in place accepting the face time call. Jackson's face came up and I smiled.

"Hey." I greeted sliding down to lay on my side while keeping the phone upright on the pillow.

"Hey. You okay?" Jackson asked in English, he was laying on what I assumed was his bed on his stomach wearing a tank top.

"Yeah. Everything just caught me so off guard," I replied in the same language, most of our conversions were in English as he had also deemed his and Mark's room an 'Only English Zone'.

"You don't look too great."

"I'm just tired Jaier. I've been rehearsing for an upcoming play." I answered rubbing my eye.

"You'll do great!" Came Mark's voice from somewhere in the room.

"Excuse my noisy roommate." He rolled his eyes and plugged in earphones. I laughed. He moved the phone to show Mark reading on his bunk below Jackson's. The guy gave me a thumbs up before Jackson pulled the phone back up.

"So our manager asked us to tell you guys to not stress over anything. Just ignore anyone who sends you any messages or tags you in anymore pictures, it's just petty issues, yeah?"

"I know it was bound to happen at some point but it all just happened so quickly, " I explained hurriedly, "There are so many weird tweets and pictures going around... people making so many pathetic assumptions and it's just... it's very exhausting and kinda annoying too."

Jackson was trying his best to make me get over the stress by laughing, joking around and not even talking about the situation further, so I figured I should try to uplift the mood a bit too.

"I learnt this new dish. And I would like the famous Wang Jaier who MCs countless Chinese food shows to tell me if it's any good."

"Maybe later. I'd much rather compliment how absolutely stunning you look in those new glasses."

My face immediately got hot and scrunched my eyes at him.

"Stop it!" I laughed, pulling off my glasses.

"It's getting late. I'll let you sleep now, we have practice in like an hour so I am going to catch some shut eye."

"Good night Jaier."

"Good night, and don't forget to watch us in the morning, live."

"I won't; 9:00 A.M, yeah?"

"Yup. I'm gonna go now."

"Bye." He made a kissy face at the camera before hanging up. I shuffled down in my covers and turned off the lamp.

I was munching on my toast when the boys morning live interview came on. Lilly was at one of her classes and Eva was still passed out. 

I turned up the volume a bit. They did their greeting and I took a moment to look at their clothing, they were all in sweaters, jeans and boots. They did a short promotion for their album, "Flight Log: Departure" and introduced a few songs before the channel went to commercial.

They came back on and their single, Fly was playing in the background before fading away. The cameras turned to the MCs.

"I'm sure everyone is really excited to know about this... Jackson," the idol in question leaned forward, "there have been quite a few rumors and talks flying around recently, what everyone is calling it is a scandal," I paled when a picture of the three foreigners and I was pulled up. "So would you like to put an end to all the rumors going around?" Jackson clamped a hand down on Mark's shoulder and I bit my lip.

"I don't see what the fuss is all about. Can't we hang out with some of our friends on a free day? The public sees us with a friend, that by no means is a reason to assume that it's a relationship. MinHee and I grew up together, and I would rather everyone believe that she's a really good friend." Mark answered, cutting to the chase and allowing no further misunderstandings.

With that, I sighed and the MC seemed to think it sufficient enough to move on. Turning the T.V. off once the interview was finished, I let out a loud breath before getting up to get ready for my first class of the day.

I had just bought a coffee for myself and it was almost two in the afternoon when my phone lit up showing a new voice message.

"So, Manager-hyung talked to some people and they said its better if we keep out of public eye for a while, until everything settles down at least. We're gonna go on a tour to Japan and China,  and hopefully by that time everything will have settled down. I'm letting you know to not cause any more misunderstandings or strain in our relationship, right? I guess you're in class. Call me when you can."