JAEDARA was unfolding to the public like scenes from the cheesiest rom-com. Dara’s PR team was methodically directing their “relationship” like a daily soap episode and apparently, people were buying it lock, stock and barrel. Since their “first meeting” at the GDAs, JAEDARA had come a long way and it had only been a week. JAEDARA surely had a faster time frame than real life.

 

 

 

       Jaejoong was amazed by it all. He knew he was famous, but being Dara’s boyfriend had a different level of famous. Gummy said his Facebook page likes had increased by nearly a million in the past few days alone. His name was on the list of the hottest trending topics on the internet, along with Dara’s name and JAEDARA itself, meaning, people were searching his name and anything connected to it every second all over the world.

 

 

 

       His “beach date” with Dara did this. Man, even by his acting standards, that was too much. Too much because he wasn’t acting at all. Those pictures were…real.

 

 

 

       Too real. And they were beautiful. He’d kissed a dozen women while the cameras were rolling and he’d never watched any of his movies twice, but he did look at his pictures kissing Dara more than once. Okay, a lot. He’d stared. It turned him on big time.

 

 

 

       The internet was full of JAEDARA moments. He’d been exchanging sweet tweets with Dara. That was actually the handiwork of Gummy and Dara’s publicist manipulating their social media accounts. JAEDARA had a very public relationship going on and it was hard not to take what was openly happening into their private lives.

 

 

 

       Dara had refused to take his calls for two days now after their tiff at the beach and he was going crazy. Junsu forbade him from seeing her as her PR team hadn’t scheduled a new JAEDARA episode yet. They were going at it like a well-organized film production and he was starting to really resent it. It was hard to treat the whole thing as merely a job where he’d just show up on schedule.

 

 

 

       He wanted to see Dara everyday. He was dying to be with her again and frustration was building up inside him, testing his patience. Yet he wanted to keep everything totally private, too. This thing between between them was still undefined and he wanted to take the time to figure it out with her at their own pace, not with JAEDARA’s time warp speed. He wanted them to spend quality time together with nobody around them, no entourage, no staff, no PR team, no nothing, just the two of them. He was contemplating taking off with her to some secluded place so they can be totally private.

 

 

 

       This pretending thing was just laughable now. After what happened to him and Dara, he was now pretending to pretend it was all pretense. He was arguably an actor of high caliber based on his awards but he found this “acting job” with Dara challenging to the extreme.

 

 

 

       Bom caught them in bed that morning and he was sure Junsu knew about it now. Those two probably compared notes like stockbrokers out to make a killing at Dow Jones and JAEDARA was their commodity. But Junsu hadn’t really asked him about it and he wouldn’t volunteer the information either. He was never the kiss and tell type, especially about his business with Dara. He wasn’t ready to share it with anybody yet, even though JAEDARA was already being consumed greedily by the public.

 

 

 

       The paparazzi’s interest in him seemed to have tripled overnight, too. He couldn’t even go to the gym without someone taking pictures of him, asking him about Dara. He’d kept his answers to a minimum. He would follow the “official” script on that score. He wouldn’t want to compromise Dara’s reputation in any way. But the questions were becoming offensive every passing day. It was hard to turn the other way when they’d throw at him like, “Are you guys for real or just using each other?” or “Do you really love her or just using her to land Super X?”

 

 

 

       They hit the nail on the head, of course, but he felt stung when slapped with those questions in the face. They were the truth, but strangely now, the truth was mightily offending him, not because of his principles as a professional, but because he simply didn’t want anybody to think he was using Dara  in any way.

 

 

 

       It had become personal to him.

 

 

 

       Real life was indeed stranger than fiction.

 

      
 

 

        

 

 

 

      
 

 

       They arrived at the restaurant at little past seven in the evening. Their first official dinner date was open season for the real paparazzi this time around. Bom’s minions let the word out that JAEDARA was going downtown for dinner tonight at a celebrity-favorite restaurant and lo and behold, they were all waiting with their shooters ready at the entrance.

 

 

 

       Dara spent the few hours earlier in her room trying to take a nap but just couldn’t knowing Jaejoong was coming to pick her up at her mansion.

 

 

 

       He arrived earlier than he was supposed to but she didn’t come down from her room to see him. She didn’t want him to think she was excited to see him again.

 

 

 

       But she was. Excited like a school girl about to see her crush. Blech! She’d written songs in her earlier albums for her high school fans describing this feeling. No wonder they all hit No. 1 at the charts. This was crazy! She’d never even felt this with GD and he was her childhood bestfriend and their relationship spanned many years. But it was nothing like she was having with Jaejoong. She met Jaejoong only last week and his impact in her life was nothing less than cataclysmic. It was mind-boggling, the speed of how it developed. The urgency. The anticipation. It was so high school. She didn’t know what whirlwind truly meant until now. And she was 26! Too old for this!

 

 

 

       She’d found out from her staff that Jaejoong was with Bom having coffee in the sun room. She’d sneaked out of her bedroom to check them out and she heard their laughter. Like a voyeur, she watched them, her eyes mainly on Jaejoong. Unguarded, he looked relaxed as he listened to Bom talk, laughing at her jokes. She couldn’t stop the jealousy that assaulted her that Bom was making him laugh. She wasn’t as vivacious as Bom. Her humor was mostly sarcastic, but Bom could make even zombies laugh hysterically.

 

 

 

       Feeling foolish from her petty thoughts, she went back to her room and sulked until it was time for their dinner date. When she came down from her room an hour later, he was waiting for her in the living room, dressed in casual coal black jeans and navy blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up in his arms. His hair was tied up neatly in a pony tail. He was badass perfection.

 

 

 

       He took her breath away as usual. Her tummy would probably never settle when he was near. Her would probably never go dry in his presence. She hated him for making her feel like this, for transforming her mind and body into this person she didn’t know anymore.

 

 

 

       What stung most was, he was right. She was the biggest hypocrite. Well, he can call her whatever he liked but she wasn’t falling for his games again. Self-respect, hello! She hadn’t arrived at this point in her career just to be a man’s plaything!

 

 

 

       Remembering his proposition made her blood boil all over again.

 

 

 

       “Relax. You’re so strung up like a rat trap. Smile, baby. The cams are rolling. We’re live on the internet.”

 

 

 

       His lazy tone aggravated the tension within her. How could he read her so easily? Not many people could. She was a master at poker face, and she was even smiling her jaw hurt!

 

 

 

       The paparazzi came in full force tonight. Understandable as this was the much-awaited JAEDARA sighting since their beach date that every tabloid and online blog known to gossipdom tattled about endlessly.

 

 

 

       The paparazzi were relentless, as usual.

 

 

 

       “Dara! Jaejoong! Look over here!”

 

 

 

       “Are you guys really dating?! Is this official?!”

 

 

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