Sandeul and Lila stared at each other. They couldn’t believe the story that had just come out of their mouths. More like Lila couldn’t believe the version that Sandeul had told. He broke up with her because of the company? Her head was in a whirlwind of possibilities. “Well…um, thank you,” the CEO of the company said as he was feeling the awkward atmosphere that was emerging. He felt pretty sorry for the couple for breaking them apart, he didn’t know that one simple command had that much of a difference on their life. “Um…Sandeul, Lila, you guys are dismissed. I’d like to talk to Jinyoung for a little bit.”

            “Alright,” Lila said responding first and nodding her head as she got up from the seat and made her way out the door with Sandeul right behind her on her tail.

            “Lila, wait a minute,” Sandeul said as soon as they were outside of the office. Lila was speed walking down the hallway. “Lila, where are you going?”

            “We’re dismissed, aren’t we?” Lila asked turning around to look at Sandeul for a split second. “I’m leaving.”

            “Wait a minute,” Sandeul said running to catch up to her and grabbing her arm the moment he was within reach. “We should talk.”

            “Talk about what? Didn’t we just talk in there? Isn’t your CEO going to figure everything out and make good decisions about your life like he’s done before?” Lila didn’t mean to say those things; she didn’t mean to say them that harshly. It was just that she as confused and questioning everything that happened after she and Sandeul broke up. At that current moment, Sandeul wasn’t making anything any better.

            When Lila had said that sentence, the realization dawned upon him. Because he didn’t tell Lila about his dream of becoming a singer and because he hadn’t told her about him going to debut in an idol group, he was the one that broke apart their relationship. Sandeul felt more regretful than ever.

            “I’m leaving,” Lila said turning around once again and walking away to go back to her apartment.

            Sandeul couldn’t stop her. He couldn’t do anything but just stand there and watch as she disappeared. “Lila, I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“I want you to watch over Lila,” their CEO said to Jinyoung after Sandeul and Lila had left.

            “Why?” Jinyoung asked.

            “Because I know that the reporters will be around her right now and will probably want answers. I’ll do my best to clear it up, but since it’s out in the public, it will remain out in the public until they decide that they don’t want to pursue it anymore. Right now we should be watching everything.”

            “Okay,” Jinyoung said nodding his head. He understood what his CEO meant. “But how am I supposed to watch over her?”

            “Just be near her, I’m not saying that it should be creepy or anything, I’m simply saying that I don’t want her to be harassed by the reporters with questions. It’s overwhelming and she’s not even a celebrity, she wouldn’t know how to handle all of the things coming at her at once.”

            “I understand.”

            “Now, you are released. I just wanted to make sure that that was clear.”

            “It’s very clear,” Jinyoung said standing up and slightly bowing to him. “I’ll be going now.”

            As soon as Jinyoung left the meeting, he looked around for any sign of Sandeul or Lila. He didn’t see Lila anywhere but he saw Sandeul sitting on the steps. “Hyung, you’re done?” Sandeul asked as he saw Jinyoung.

            “Yea, I’m done,” Jinyoung said taking a seat right next to him. “How are you holding up?”

            “Good, I guess,” he quietly added onto the end as he sighed and rested his head on his hands. He didn’t know what to think. He knew that he had to give up on Lila back then because it would only hurt them more in the future, but he wondered that if now hurt more than it would’ve back then. Sandeul wondered what Lila was thinking about knowing that he had kept all of those things from her. He even kept the fact that he was becoming an idol a secret from her and her face when she first saw him was still imprinted in his mind.

            “Just give her some time,” Jinyoung said as he looked forward and stared at the space on the wall that Sandeul was staring at.

            “But hyung, I lied to her.”

            “I’m sure she’ll understand.”

            “How are you so sure?” Sandeul worriedly asked while looking at him. “If people didn’t get a hold of those pictures then they would have never known about our past relationship and everything would still be fine.”

            “Sandeul-ah, just answer a question for me,” Jinyoung said looking at the younger boy.

            “What?”

            “Do you still like her?” Jinyoung asked. He was curious. He wanted to know. “Do you still like Lila?”

            “I have Eunji, what are you talking about?” Sandeul asked crossing his arms and turning his head away from Jinyoung.

            “Putting Eunji aside, do you like Lila?” Jinyoung asked again. He wanted an answer.

Lila sat in her living room. She didn’t know what was going on anymore. The whole reason Sandeul had lied to her was because he was going to become an idol? Lila couldn’t believe it. While they were dating he had secretly gone to audition for a company, he had gotten in, and he was set to debut in an idol group. Lila didn’t know why Sandeul hadn’t trusted her. Was it a secret that he thought she couldn’t keep?

            “Lila, are you in there? Open up,” Eunji said as she knocked on Lila’s door. Frankly, Lila didn’t feel like talking with Eunji. It was kind of the last person that she felt like seeing. What would they say to each other? Surely Eunji was probably okay with the fact that Lila had once dated Sandeul, but then again maybe she wasn’t since Lila had never told her. Lila had lied and said that she had never met Sandeul before when Eunji first introduced them to each other.

            Still, Eunji kept knocking at the door and Lila still didn’t answer. After a couple more minutes of knocking, it stopped. However, it wasn’t before long before it started again. “Will she ever give up?” Lila asked herself as she got off of the couch to get herself a drink.

            As she leaned against the counter and drank some of her juice, her phone rang. “Lila, it’s me,” Jinyoung said on the other line. “I’m the one knocking.”

            “Oh,” Lila said.

            “Can you open it?”

            “I guess,” she said sighing. Lila put down her cup and made her way over to her front door and opened it to see Jinyoung leaning against the frame.

            “Hey,” Jinyoung said ending the call and placing his phone into his pocket.

            “Come in,” Lila said moving out of the door and sitting down on her couch. Jinyoung followed right behind. The whole time he kept observing Lila to see if Sandeul’s side of the story affected her in any way. To him it just seemed like she was confused about things. Hopefully he would be able to help ease things.

            “Are you okay?” Jinyoung asked starting the conversation first.

            “I…I don’t know,” Lila said sighing as she looked at him.

            “Come here,” Jinyoung said opening his arms wide and inviting Lila into his embrace. Lila stared at it for a moment before slowly moving closer to him. Jinyoung softly smiled at seeing Lila come closer and he hugged her tighter as he began to lightly play with her hair. Thankfully, she didn’t pull away from him and Jinyoung was thankful for that. “I wish I knew how to help you,” he muttered.

            “It’s alright,” Lila said attempting to put Jinyoung at ease. She could feel that he was worried about both her and Sandeul, since he was the leader of the group after all. Lila found herself worrying about him despite the current place that she was at. “You shouldn’t be worried about anything, I should be.”

            “Nah,” Jinyoung said with a light chuckle. “I should be worried. I like you and Sandeul is my dongsaeng, my band mate.”

            “You like me,” Lila said with a slight scoff.

            “What, you don’t like it?” Jinyoung asked moving himself so that he was able to look at Lila.

            “No, it’s not that I don’t like it,” Lila said as she grabbed Jinyoung’s hand and began playing with his fingers. “I just… Even after all of this you still like me?”

            “All of what? What’s happened?” Jinyoung asked. He didn’t know what was going through Lila’s head and he wished he did. She seemed like she was at a place that no one besides her would be able to understand and it killed Jinyoung.

            He wanted to be able to help her, he wanted to be able to do whatever for her, but with the sudden news that Sandeul lied about what he was doing during their relationship, it probably hurt her more than anyone realized during the meeting. When they first met Sandeul, Jinyoung didn’t even remember Sandeul mentioning a girlfriend. Only two years later did Jinyoung figure out that he had a girlfriend for two years before he began training with the group. Did Lila really mean that little to him?

            “Lila, listen to me when I say that nothing’s happened yet,” Jinyoung said attempting to let her relax. “Our CEO will fix everything, I promise you.”

            “But he didn’t trust me,” Lila whispered. “Am I really not that trustable? Why wouldn’t he be able to tell me something like chasing his dream?”

            “I don’t know,” Jinyoung said moving so that he and Lila were facing one another. Gently, Jinyoung touched the side of her face. “I don’t know why he chose not to tell you, but let me tell you one thing, Lila. Your past with Sandeul doesn’t matter to me. I already told you that the past is the past. The one thing that I know is that I like you, I like you a lot and I would trust you with my life.”

            With those words said, Jinyoung leaned in to gently kiss Lila.

“Hyung, why is Eunji calling all of us?” Gongchan asked as soon as Sandeul walked into the dorm.

            “She’s called my phone ten times,” Baro said taking it out and practically shoving the phone into Sandeul’s face.

            “I don’t know,” Sandeul said collapsing onto the floor and staring at the ceiling. “She hasn’t called me.”

            “Well maybe you should call her,” Gongchan suggested as he threw his phone to Sandeul. “If she didn’t call you, then there was probably a reason for it. Use my phone so she thinks that it’s me.”

            “Alright, thanks Channie,” Sandeul said as he caught Gongchan’s phone and made his way into his own room. Sandeul began wondering why Eunji would be calling the members instead of calling him, her boyfriend.

            “Channie, you finally got back to me,” Eunji immediately said as she picked up the phone.

            “I’m not Channie,” Sandeul tells her.

            On the other line, Eunji was shocked at hearing Sandeul’s voice on the other line. Surely it was Gongchan’s name that showed up on her caller ID and after checking, it was true. Eunji wondered how Sandeul was able to use Gongchan’s phone but figured that it probably wasn’t that hard to use one of his group members’ phone.

            “Oh, Sandeul-oppa,” Eunji said slightly changing her tone.

            It wasn’t that hard for Sandeul to see right through her act. He could already feel that something was off when Eunji called all of the other members besides him. Why would she want to talk to them and not him?

            “Eunji,” Sandeul began with a sigh. He didn’t know what to say. Was Eunji someone else whenever he wasn’t around? “Is there something that you want to tell me?”

            “No, why would there be something that I wanted to tell you?” she innocently asked.

            “Then why did you want to talk to the other members but not me?”

            “It’s a secret,” she whispered.

            “Alright,” Sandeul said figuring that he could probably get one of the members to talk to her later and then discover what she wanted to talk to them about.

            “Is there a reason why you called me using Gongchan’s phone?” Eunji curiously asked.

            “I lost mine,” Sandeul lied. “Channie is the closest one around so I just used his.”

            “Alright,” Eunji said nodding her head, that was an excuse she could take, although she wasn’t entirely sure as to he was telling the truth or not. However, knowing Sandeul’s tract record, it seemed like losing his phone was something that happened very frequently.

            “Eunji, what are you doing tonight?”

            “Nothing,” she said as she thought if she had any plans.

            “Do you want to get together tonight? Like go out on a date?” Sandeul offered. “It feels like a long time since we went out on a proper one.”

            “It really feels like it’s been a long time,” Eunji said agreeing with Sandeul.

            “So then it’s settled, I’ll pick you up tonight at eight, alright? I don’t have a schedule tonight.”

            “Alright,” Eunji said nodding her head, although Sandeul couldn’t see it. “I’ll see you tonight at eight.”

            After hanging up the phone with Eunji, Sandeul lied back onto his bed and began to think about what happened earlier. He questioned himself as to why he never told Lila about his dream of becoming a singer. Did he not trust her? Did he not think she would understand? It was too long ago for Sandeul to actually remember why he chose not to tell her, or at last to remember a decent excuse that he probably told himself.

            Slowly, Sandeul’s mind began drifting to the conversation that he had with Jinyoung earlier.

“Putting Eunji aside, do you like Lila?” Jinyoung asked.

            “What kind of question is this?” Sandeul asked once again attempting to not answer.

            “It’s a question that you should answer,” Jinyoung said staring right into Sandeul’s eyes. “I’m curious, I’m honestly curious.”

            “Why? Why are you so curious about her?”

            “Because I like her. No, I don’t like her, I love her,” Jinyoung said. He smiled to himself as thoughts of Lila began to fill his head.

            Sandeul was slightly taken aback by Jinyoung’s statement. He didn’t realize that Jinyoung loved Lila. It didn’t seem like that long ago they met and now he was already saying that he loved her. “Are you real right now?” Sandeul asked.

            “I’m serious,” Jinyoung said standing up from the step. “You may have hurt her in the past, but I promise, I’m not going to hurt her in the future.”

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What will happen between Jinyoung and Lila? What will happen between Sandeul and Eunji? Will Sandeul and Lila get back together in the end?

Here's Chapter 15. Hope you enjoyed :D