"How bad is it?" I groaned, both hands covering my face.

 

"Do you want us to be optimistic or honest?" Rose dropped the phone on the dark ebony table.

 

"Merde" I cursed under my breath in French.

 

"Unnie, Don't worry. Give it a few days, a week max and it will all blow over." Eunhi ran her hands over my dyed-cherry blonde hair.

 

I leaned forward until my head hit the table with a light thud. This was the worst thing to ever happened to me. Well, not exactly the worst but it was quite high up on my list of "ty life events".

 

" Look, we're the people that this effect the most and if we are not mad at you, then you shouldn't really care."

 

I lifted my head to glare at Sori. Sarcastic and Blunt as hell, were the two phrases to describe her. I remember the first word that she said to me when we first met, "Don't think you are going to be getting any special treatment because you trained at SM."

 

My first expression of her was that she was a ,  but that was only half true. It only took a short time for me to realize how perspective and fiercely loyal she was. It was no surprise that she was the main rapper in the group.

 

"Really? Really?" I cried. "My career is pretty much over." I reached for the box of Kleenex and pat under my eyes. I wasn’t crying but the moisture in my eyes was affecting my mascara, and causing my eyes to itch.

 

"Oh, stop being dramatic."

 

"Yeah. Let's wait until we talk with Manager-nim before you freak out." Fingers ran through my hair once more.

 

Speak of the devil; The door of the meeting room opened. PD-nim took a seat at the head of the table. His usual spot, but only four of us were lined at the table side. Definitely not his usual meeting.

 

"First thing first, from now on. You-" he pointed to Eunhi. "-are the main spokesperson for this group."

 

Both Eunhi and Rose opened their mouth, probably to question the newfound switch. Rose was the leader, so naturally, the speaking role was left up to her in interviews and press conference. In contrast, Eunhi was probably the shyest and most soft-spoken of the four of us.

 

Before the could interject, PD-nim continued. "You"- he pointed at Eunhi again." Are the most Korean."

 

I looked over to see Sori raise a brow.

 

Eunhi and Sori were the only two of the four of us that actually grew up in Korea. Rose was born in Korea but moved to and lived in America when she was six years old. I was born in France, lived there for the most part except for attending high school in England and summer holidays spent in Korea. However, Sori had a tendency to be blunt and unlike me, she wasn’t oblivious when she said borderline offensive things.

 

Sori shrugged and leaned back into her seat as if she didn’t care. Most likely she didn’t.

 

“And I trust you the most to not messing up and saying anything that will send the nation into a frenzy.”

 

Well, it wasn’t really the nation, I thought. It was the netizens, who would have given me just as much hate if I said that I loved Twice, and also the Twice fans that swarmed anyone who had the least bit of criticism towards Twice.

 

But I didn’t even criticize Twice. Even now I was confused as to why we - especially me -was getting attacked.

 

I replayed the incident in my mind again like I have been doing for the last few days.

 

“So, some people are saying that you are the next Twice? What do you think about that?”

 

The camera zoomed in on my face, and I tried to stay calm as I laughed and said the first thing that came to mind, “We’re nothing like Twice. I think we do more edgier concept, compared to the cute themes they do, but I think that they are really talented and proud to be compared to them.”

 

I said they were talented and that I was happy we were being compared to them, however, most of the audience didn’t hear that and was more stuck on my first phase: “We’re nothing like Twice.”

 

Did I say it in an arrogant way? Was it because I laughed? I read multiple comments along the lines of how arrogant I think I am and how even my laugh was y.

 

“You-” Manager's hand was pointed towards me. “From now on you will be taking cultural lessons.”

 

“What?” I deadpanned, confused about why cultural lessons, but then I got my answer when Manger simply glared at me and I turned my head to see Eunhi face in shock.

 

You never say just “What” to your elders in Korea. It was considered informal and disrespectful. It wasn’t that I didn’t know, both my parents are Korean and raised me with traditional Korean ideals despite living in France. Korean was always spoken at home, but I always thought of French as my first language and Korean as my second, so subtle points such as honorifics and cultural do’s and don’t's was a second thought to me. Usually, people just corrected me before, but it seems that this incident might change that.

 

“Yeah,” I responded while bowing my head at an angle.

 

We had the rest of the night off since PD-nim wanted us to lay low for a while, which meant no interviews or public appearances. As we walked back to our dorm, my phone buzzed again. It was a message from the same number. I knew who it was despite deleting his contact information a few years ago from my phone. It was one of the numbers that I actually remembered, and that I could recall entire from memory.

 

I saw his earlier text. It was a simple, “Hi, How are you?”, in which I skipped over to read the other texts from my friends who wanted to console me after the incident.

Now, the words, “I hope you are alright. Stay strong and don’t let it get to you.” was highlighted on my screen. Yet again, I read it and ignored it, shoving my phone back into my pocket.