Kyungwon found out two years back that learning English wasn't as easy as she initially thought it was. She had heard Kyla and Sungyeon conversing in their mother tongue and had thought 'it doesn't sound that complicated, I bet I can learn it in a month'. Yet here she was, on the verge of a mental breakdown as her slow brain tried to process and memorise all these new words that came along with pronounciation. Who the hell invented this language? Why are there so many rules when they are practically useless? Why won't my mouth let me formulate the words properly?

As years went by, she began to get better and reached the point where she could watch an American movie and 90 percent understand what they were saying (which was useful for when Sungyeon and Kyla decided to roast her). But the company still told them to take classes once a week to refresh their minds so they didn't loose their skill. Wednesdays then became Kyungwon's least favourite day, when she had to spend an hour and a half in one of the offices with their English teacher and the '98 line, who had insisted on joining her.

Though really, Yebin was just there to show off. She didn't understand why the small girl decided to waste her time in English sessions when she could be practicing her rap verses or something. Kyungwon knew she was just bitter that the younger girl was better than her.

It didn't make it any better that Kyulkyung was a fast learner when it came to languages, seeing as she spoke both Chinese and Korean, and was always further ahead than her on most of the questions. Her eyes sparkled whenever she understood something and got compliments for her learning capacity, which only urged her on to try her best at answering all questions given to them. To the point where their teacher had to stop her from answering them to give Kyungwon and Eunwoo a chance too.

Eunwoo was her only hope. Her best friend was pretty narrow-minded and stubborn, so whenever their teacher tried telling her that she was wrong and then procede to explain why she was wrong, she always began rambling something about history or how the American drama she was watching said something else and they knew more than him. So despite her experience time being almost two years, the only sentence she could actually formulate was 'hello, my name is Eunwoo, I like cheese and you?'

And it was like this now.

Their teacher had told them to explain what they enjoyed about being a trainee, and the very excitable Eunwoo had volunteered (threatened everyone else to not say a word) to go first and "show you how it's done". She could see her teacher trying not to let his head fall into his hands from despair, Yebin watching with a disapproving grimace on her face and Kyulkyung with an expression that read 'I'm done'.

"--bing-badaboom cheese and I love star and swaggy baggy--" She has been hanging around Siyeon too much.

"Okay," Their teacher interrupted, and Kyungwon glanced at him pityingly smiled at him as he stressfully rubbed his forehead. "Eunwoo, we will have to work on that a little more later, Kyulkyung, if you would like to save this lesson...?"

Eunwoo gasped, glaring at their teacher in surprise. "I will take full offense, seongsaengnim." Kyungwon reached across Yebin who looked as if she wanted to jump off a bridge this very moment and tugged at the girl's skirt to get her to sit down. She was a little surprised to see that their teacher hadn't quit yet, so she reached the conclusion that perhaps all the money that could be going into a debut was being wasted on paying him to stay here and put up with Eunwoo.

He wouldn't have to put up with Eunwoo if their company decided to keep them in their basement and not debut them. The thought made her grimace. The girl had probably been wanting to debut a lot longer than her, and the dream was already crumbling right in front of her. In front of all of them as they watched countless girl groups debut each year and disband due to lack of popularity.

Kyungwon remembered skimming through her TV and landing on the music show to see the girl from the group that Mnet produced. The groups name had been 'IOI', something they had all been very jealous of at the time and even now, with eleven girls who gained a lot of popularity and fans from Korea and internationally. This particular girl, Kim Chungha as she had learnt from when the group debuted, had decided to go solo instead of joining another group and Kyungwon had respected her decision. She didn't know if she would be able to survive in this entertainment if it was just her by herself. But Chungha seemed to be doing well with her song in the charts, which she couldn't help but admire and envy at the same time.

Sighing, she saw Yebin glance at her and raise her eyebrows, asking her what was wrong.

She shook her head and smiled to reassure her, which made Yebin take her hand on the table and squeeze it lightly.

The knock at the door interrupted the teacher's praisings for Kyulkyung, and he quickly told the person behind it to come inside. Kyungwon tensed when she saw the familiar face appear in the small gap made when the door was pushed open slighly.

"Sorry to be an inconvinience, but could I borrow Kang Kyungwon for a second?" Wonwoo asked, a polite expression on his face as her stared at the English teacher. "The CEO would like to talk to her."

Her heart dropped to her stomach. She felt all three of the '98 line's heads turn to stare at her with wide eyes screaming 'what have you done?'. Her eyes met Wonwoo's hoping for some condolence yet instead recieved an expressionless reply that made the atmosphere heavier and him gesturing for her to step outside. She bowed in apology to her teacher and left the room, shouldering her bag and following after a serious looking Wonwoo. His lack of friendliness he had presented when they were talking two weeks ago was gone with no traces left to be found, and she immediately wondered if she had done something wrong to anger him.

After revising over the past days and coming up short, she thought that maybe her secret got out. Maybe the company knew about her feelings and were repulsed by them so they wanted to get rid of her before she caused any trouble. Maybe they'd put her through that therapy crap that she had seen on the Internet when she was researching more about her uality. How horrible would that be? If news got out, then all her friends and family would hate her. They'd probably shun her. Minkyung would hate her.

Reaching the top floor where the CEO, Han Seongsu's office was situated, Kyungwon was prepared to run if things turned out badly and go live in America where she would at least be accepted by some people. After all, she had taken enough English lessons so there wouldn't be much of a language barrier. Perhaps she would even be able to get herself an American girlfriend and move on from all these confusing feelings she had for Minkyung.

"Come in." The intimidating voice rang through the black wooden door, making all the hairs on her body stand on end and hesitate to step into the room.

Tentatively stepping inside the room, Kyungwon glanced around to see the blinds on the window pulled closed and a number of people wearing expressions that matched the mood standing in front of them, all staring intently at her. Oh god, I'm gonna be sick. Kyungwon closed her eyes tightly as Wonwoo closed the door loudly after he exited the room. What had she done to get in this situation?

"Kyungwon, take a seat." Seongsu ordered, the coldest tone in his voice she had ever heard after that time he had personally fired one of their staff for selling information to another company.

Am I going to be fired?

She finally glanced and saw the familiar stature slumped on one of the chairs facing the stern man who was pointing to the armchair beside him, her confusion and assumptions increasing by the second. If she were more confident like Eunwoo or Kyulkyung, she would be able to question her presence in the office. But she didn't have the courage to do anything at the moment so she complied and took a seat on the black chair that attempted to swallow her (she almost pleaded for god to let it happen).

"Before we get into anything, I would like to give you a chance to say it yourselves," Seongsu began, glancing between the two as if urging them on. Kyungwon frowned, her mind already reaching the state in her mind that her thoughts became one and no words could formulate on her tongue. "what is the relationship between the two of you?"

Wait.

What.

Kyungwon stared at their CEO with wide eyes, her jaw slacking as she processed and digested his question. She wasn't daft nor oblivious. She immediately knew what he was talking about when her mind took her back to the night she and Mingyu had met in the streets and she had helped him escape the sasaeng fans. With all the training and lessons in between everything - and also her time wasted thinking and talking to Minkyung - she hadn't had the time to process that perhaps what had happened that night could've been mistaken as something other than it truly was. And she wouldn't really blame the person who interprated it that way because it was what she had implied when she had pulled Mingyu's head closer.

Mingyu didn't seem to think the same, apparently, because he straightened in his seat from the shock and let out a frustrated huff. "Is this what it's about?" He sounded bothered by the whole thing, and Kyungwon couldn't say that she didn't feel the same, either.

"Yes, pictures of the you was taken-" Seongsu turned the laptop so that the screen faced them. "-and now you two are all over the headlines."

Pursing her lips, Kyungwon leaned forward in her seat to observe the images on the device and saw that it was taken from an angle where Mingyu's face could be seen from behind, though the coat which he was taking off managed to block her in the first picture, the second one of him handing the coat over to her got a portion of her face - luckily not enough for someone to tell it was her. The third one was her head ducked down, her hair serving as a curtain to shield the camera's eye, while putting the coat on, Mingyu reaching to brush something off her head which she hadn't noticed him doing at that moment.

The headline read something along the lines of 'Seventeen's Kim Mingyu's secret love afair?' which made both parties scoff at the obvious click bait. However, they couldn't see the rest of the article as Seongsu tilted it downwards to regain their attention.

"Well?" He raised an eyebrow, eyeing both of their behaviour. Kyungwon shifted uncomfortably in her seat, not sure on where or how to start whereas Mingyu simply leaned onto his hand and stared back at him disinterestedly. "What is your relationship?"

Kyungwon cleared her thoat, noticing how had gone dry after the accusation. "There is none. It doesn't exist." She stated bluntly, though as politely as she could. No matter how much annoyance she expressed to Nayoung when she ranted about the company not debuting them when they were clearly prepared, she still didn't want to loose the raport she had built with the CEO and get kicked out of a half-decent company. It would also mean that she wouldn't be able to see Minkyung almost every day if she were kicked out.

"She's right," Mingyu backed her up, though sounding very inconvinienced. "we're just dance partners for the time being."

Seongsu made a face that clearly relayed he didn't fully believe their statement. After all, there was very solid proof of the article and pictures saying otherwise. There was a great injustice in all of this. Kyungwon had just wanted to help Mingyu out of trouble, not get him into more and drag herself into it while she was at it.

"Look, sajang-nim, we only met a month ago. Realistically speaking, it would have been impossible for a relationship to develop over this short amount of time." Mingyu began, fixing his position so he sat with more authority.

Encouraged by this, Kyungwon joined in. "If you don't believe this, you can ask anyone from the company or fellow trainees and members," She added, taking her phone from her pocket and sliding it on the table so it lay an arm's length away from the CEO. "you can go through my phone. I don't even have his contact in there."

Mingyu also took out his phone, his looking like a rich billionaire owned it while hers looked like it came straight out of the 70s. "Now, if you think that we are dirty enough to get involved with each other for those reasons, then I'm the one who feels betrayed. Plus, our schedules barely coincide so we wouldn't be able to meet up."

There was a moment of silence as Kyungwon stared at the CEO intently, refusing to let the insecurity forever building inside of her to force her eyes downwards. If this didn't work out then it meant that she could possibly be put on the streets without a company or a job; if the public found out her identity then she would be on the end of never-ending death threats from possibly over-possessive fans or simply people who enjoyed tormenting female idols. Just the thought of it made her heart pound against her chest, the blood rushing around her head making a loud, fuzzy sound in her ears, her hands trembling even though she had clenched them tightly as she held onto her bag. Her already sore muscles were being strained under the tautness that Kyungwon had forced herself into.

"Then how do you plan on explaining the pictures?" Seongsu asked, making the exasperation within her piling on top of one another.

"I'm going to be completely honest here," Kyungwon started with a shaky voice, ignoring the uneasy look Mingyu sent her. Trust me a little, . "I was walking back to my apartment from training and was by myself. All of a sudden, Mingyu-sunbaenim showed up saying he was running away from some sasaeng fans that had been stalking his location. They were just round the corner and I didn't want Mingyu to be caught with me to create a misunderstanding-"

"Even though it ended up in there being one." Kyungwon glared at Mingyu, telling him to shut up.

"-so we hid our faces and pretended to be a couple so that the fans wouldn't notice us. They left and sunbaenim gave me my coat back, the pictures taken there, and I went home and he went to wherever he was ment to be going to." Kyungwon begged the CEO to believe the story, which was what actually happened. She was tempted to tell him to get a lying detector just to prove she wasn't being untruthful when he released a sigh.

"Alright, I'll buy it." Both let out the breaths they had been holding, Kyungwon feeling tears well up in her eyes from the relief. "But that doesn't mean that there are consequences for this scandal, especially for Mingyu."

Right. Mingyu was the one who was an idol, not her. Surely most of his fans would be devestated at the news and some of them even feeling so betrayed that they stopped supporting the group, which would explain why Wonwoo was so angry at her earlier. He would be questioned by his group members, interviewers, even other idols or actors who were too curious for their own good and didn't know how to mind their own business. But surely it could be seen as a good thing? Many other companies used fake rumors and relationships to create popularity and talk for their group, which would then be good for exposure. But then again, it was already difficult recieving love from fans when you were in such a big group with other very talented idols, imagine getting into a relationship so early in your career which resulted in an increase of unpopularity.

Kyungwon suddenly felt a new weight on her shoulders as she glanced at Mingyu, an apologetic look on her face. This wouldn't have happened if she had just pretended like they didn't know each other and had instead walked on. Sure, Mingyu would've had to handle sasaeng fans by himself because he didn't have a manager, but at least most of his fans wouldn't hate him.

After the CEO had finished going over what would probably happen from now, he dismissed the managers (Seventeen's managers) who had been standing by the window the whole time, he leaned on the desk and stared at them. "You will have to deny that it was you, Kyungwon, for future purposes. Mingyu, I want you to stay away from social media for a while." He took his glasses off and rubbed his forehead in a stressed manner, looking so defeated that Kyungwon almost pitied him for a second.

Of course she still held the grudge against him and the company anchored deep inside of her for not debuting them already.

"You two better not cause any more trouble, I swear..." Seongsu smiled at them before waving them off. "Now go, you have training to catch up with."

They both stood, leaving after bowing respectfuly, and stayed in silence as they walked to the stairs. No words were exchanged between them as they glumly made their way back to where they previously were, an awkward atmosphere between the two.

That was until when they were on the second floor when Mingyu grabbed her arm.

"Okay, this is obviously your fault but I'm gonna be kind enough to forgive you if you give me an apology." He deadpanned, Kyungwon double checking his face to see if he was actually being serious or not.

"What? Why would I do that?" She asked, completely abhorred by the idea of having to beg for forgiveness from the very source of this problem.

"Because it is your fault?" Mingyu asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Kyungwon didn't know if it was just Mingyu or other idols who had been in the industry for too long, but she found herself wondering if every celebrity was that snotty. If they were, she may take back her promise on debuting.

Scoffing, she took her arm from his grip. "Wow, I thought that you would be at the very least grateful, but then I remembered you're a scumbag so..." She turned sassily and flipped her hair, hearing him make a disbelieved sound that sounded like a snort and a grunt mixed together.

"Yeah? Well you're a ." He said, running a little to catch up with her.

"Tell me something I don't know." She sneered, rushing her steps down the stairs so she could go back to the practice room and vent all her anger and frustration to whoever would listen to her. Preferably Minkyung, because who doesn't like seeing your crush every day?

"You know what?" Mingyu called after her as she continued to make her way down to the basement.

"What?" Not even bothering to turn around.

"You're the worst partner I've ever had." He shouted childishly, making her smirk at the victory in the argument.

"Right back at you."

-.-

She opened the door to her apartment, looking back to check if Nayoung was still following after her or not only to see the latter smile encouragingly. Kyungwon allowed her to enter first, slightly hoping that her brother wasn't back from his part-time job yet because she couldn't be bothered to tell him to behave around her friend. They had met before, on one occassion where Nayoung had to stay around because her own dorm was getting renovated, and her brother and father had taken a liking to the quiet and polite girl.

It was no different to whenever her father asked her about how Nayoung was doing, even though they had only met once. "Ah, what a pleasant surprise," Her father was smiling brightly while Nayoung bowed to him. "it's nice to see you again, Nayoung-ah."

"You too, ajosi." She replied as Kyungwon entered after finishing locking the door. Despite Nayoung being older than her, she always made sure she felt comfortable around her and treated her like a same aged friend, which only made Kyungwon love her friend more than necessary.

She kissed her father's cheek and asked him how work went before tugging an awkward Nayoung to her bed room, where they would be able to talk in private rather than her family listening in to their conversations. Her room was small, just like the rest of the apartment, her bed by the window with closed blinds and a desk full of clutter and papers from when she had been studying the latest science test. You couldn't even see her laptop anymore, and the lamp was bent so it loomed dangerously close to the surface. Kyungwon had a bad habit of leaning on the table and working with her head resting.

Other than that, the rest of her room was clean and in its place, because Kyungwon liked to keep most things in order so she knew when to make a run for it if there was every a zombie apocolypse. Maybe watching Train to Busan was a bad idea... she would have to ask Yebin later if she also got nightmares from time to time.

Launching herself onto her bed, she patted the space beside her for Nayoung to also lie down. Eunwoo had ditched her to go eat with Kyulkyung, so she couldn't rant about what a bad day she was having. Nayoung had been kind enough to volunteer and be her therapist for the time being, something she had been grateful for seeing as she hadn't had a serious talk with the older girl in a long time due to training and her part-time work.

"I heard you were called to the CEO's den." Nayoung mentioned, her head resting on the blue pillow that Kyungwon always insisted in sleeping with.

She hummed while tracing the cracks and crevices on her ceiling and remembering how when she was younger she used to put those stars that glew in the dark just because one of her school friend had it and she thought it looked cool. Sighing deeply, she turned her head to face Nayoung's, only to jump and find her already looking with curiosity in her gaze. Sometimes, the older girl had this strange way of looking at someone that was impossible to tell what exactly was going through her head, and it would be a lie to say that Kyungwon wasn't slightly terrified by it.

"I'm not sure if you saw the most recent headlines online..." She trailed off, not even sure on where to start. It was complicated and easy to misunderstand, just like all those people in the comments had.

Nayoung made a sound of realisation, recalling the article she had read. "Kim Mingyu-sunbaenim and his new girlfriend?" She asked, causing Kyungwon to grimace at the statement. She had grown to dislike the man who was full of himself, thinking that perhaps if she begged her dance instructors she would be able to get another partner.

"Yeah," in a breath of air through her teeth, she decided to look at something less intimidating. "it was a mistake, though. We were just hiding from some sasaeng fans, not out on a date."

The silence that followed her timid revelation made her panic and sit up on the bed, refusing to meet Naoung's searching one. The older girl had a very maternal aura to her, and sometimes she couldn't help but feel pressured to tell her things and sometimes even hide them to avoid getting scolded. It made her miss the distant memories of her mother, her mood dropping but soon lifted once again when Nayoung always made a terrible joke that wasn't even humorous.

"How did Mingyu-sunbaenim react to this?" she questioned curiously, only sending Kyungown into a fifteen minute long speech about why the man was irritating and full of himself.

Kyungwon ranted about how whenever they practiced, he would always tell her she was wrong without bothering to point out exactly what he thought was off about her movement and then scoff when she would try to change it. Or how they had changed their song and coreography at least five times without actually starting on a concrete project, which put them behind everyone. The most they had gotten with the new song he had chosen was forty seconds maximum and the whole thing was more than three minutes nearing four. She also talked about how he had tried forcing her into apologising despite him also being in the wrong.

"Does it affect your chance of debuting?" Nayoung asked tentatively, worry slipping into her voice past whatever blank tone she usually used for serious situations such as this one. It made Kyungwon's heart ache, at the thought of Eunwoo giving up their shared dream and how much it would affect all of them.

"I-" She stopped herself, going over what Seongsu had said to them. He had mentioned to Mingyu that he should be absent from the following radio interview, sure that the DJ would attempt to question him about the rumors, and to make it more believable he would also say another member was feeling unwell. They should both stay away from social media and not mention this to anyone outside of the company, because word in this industry spreads like wildfire. And Kyungwon should have to come to training earlier than usual so awaiting photographers wouldn't be able to take a picture of her appearance. That was all he had said regarding them. "I'm not sure... the CEO just told us what to do but he never said anything regarding debut..."

Nayoung placed a hand on her back in hopes of comforting her, though it only sent her into a mild breakdown as she went over the situation again. "Good. We wouldn't be able to do it without you." She said, Kyungwon thinking that the former thought it was in a reassuring way when in reality it only put more pressure on her.

But to keep her happy, she just nodded and smiled gratefully, pulling her up into a quick hug before jumping off and skipping to the living room. "Come on, lets watch a movie before oppa comes back and hogs the TV." She beckoned the older girl, giggling when she saw Nayoung snort and shake her head.

-

a/n: early update i guess...? seeing the comments motivated me into writing, so thank you for leaving them, i seriously appreciate it.