Jiyong:

“Hyung, can you call our manager again?” Seungri groaned while idly touching his stomach. “I’m starving. It’s been almost an hour since we called Jinhee noona for our food orders...”

I glanced at the wall clock just above the door and sighed. Seungri’s right, we’ve been waiting for almost an hour for the food to arrive and it seemed like it would never come anyway. We should have just went out for half an hour and ate somewhere else instead of waiting here. Damn. And I thought asking someone to buy us food would save us more time. It’s 2:40, and we couldn’t continue or recording because we don’t have the energy anymore.

“Look, why don’t I just go down the cafeteria and buy something to eat for all of us instead?” Seunghyun offered all of a sudden. “I’ve finished my parts. Daesung can go with me because he’s done with his parts, too. We’re just waiting here, I bet they completely lost our orders along the way because YGE building is pretty packed today.”

Lost our orders? I thought to myself. That’s BS. Someone must have screwed up our orders and even though I’m starving as well, I just wanted to give whoever that person is a piece of my mind. We’re time pressured as it is. Seriously, what’s so hard with just going to the restaurant and getting all our orders? That person doesn’t even need to fall in line. And there’s a car on his/her disposal, too.

“Well I’m not staying here,” Seunghyun hyung continued. “I’m gonna buy something, what do you guys want to--”

“Annyeong,” Someone entered the room and greeted us breathlessly. “Mianhe for being so late. It’s my fault I just...”

DARA?

What the hell was she doing here?

She didn’t look up to anyone of us as she placed the food on the small table near the door. “Something happened along the way so I wasn’t able to deliver this on time...”

Seunghyun walked over to her and touched her arm, making her stop talking for a minute. “What happened to you?”

“Oh,” She paused for a while. Still avoiding Seunghyun’s gaze, she answered weakly, “Just a small accident. I was running late so I tripped along the way.”

“You just tripped?” Youngbae asked incredulously as he went over Dara as well. “Where did you get the scratches on your left cheek, then?”

Seungri and Daesung who were currently sitting on the sofa craned their necks in Dara’s direction, obviously surprised and curious over what happened to her.

“N-noona...you have a big cut on your left hand, too!” Seungri exclaimed. “It’s still bleeding!”

“Actually, she has a cut on her knees, too. Look at her left knee!” Daesung stood up and walked to where Seunghyun hyung, Dara and Youngbae were standing. “Noona, you should have gone to a clinic first!”

I should have been angry because she messed up along the way and made us wait for a damn freakin hour. I pretended to not care instead, although I started getting more curious when Seungri went over to check her condition. They were already crowding her, while she kept on apologizing for being late.

What a fcukin commotion she made. Now there would be more time wasted because she didn’t stop herself from acting like an idiot while buying lunch.

I sighed in frustration and stood up. The others became silent as I casually joined them on the table.

Dara just looked away as I sandwiched myself between her and Seunghyun hyung. I pretended to check the lunch she brought, but I was actually checking out her injuries.

My eyes grazed on her left arm; she had multiple scratches, some are bleeding a little, some just turned red from the friction. I also saw the cut on her palm that Seungri noticed a while ago. And he’s right, it’s still bleeding quite a lot. She must have felt me glancing at it because she wiped the blood on her jeans. She winced in pain as she did that, but she still didn’t look at me.

The cut on her left knee was the ugliest. It was bleeding too, and you could actually see a trail of dried blood just below her knee. I could tell that she scraped her knee hard, because you could even see how dirty it was.

I noticed that her shirt was dirty as well from the sauce that must have splattered on it when she lost her balance.

But did she really just lose her balance?

Or maybe someone made her lose it?

“Hmm,” I murmured as I continued pretending that I was checking out the food. “I notice that you didn’t use the list. this wasn’t what we ordered.”

Seungyun hyung rolled his eyes. “Oh, brother.”

“Sorry,” was all Dara said.

I lifted one of the plastic containers and inspected the food inside. “Seriously, what is this? This is not from the restaurant we would usually order from. And funny, you ordered the things that we weren’t allowed to eat.”

“Oh my...hyung!” Daesung said suddenly, and I could tell that he was surprised with the way I was acting now. “Something bad happened to her along the way, it’s okay if she was late and if she ordered wrong.”

“That’s right,” Seungri agreed. He went over to Dara’s side and touched her shoulder, as if trying to comfort her. “She has a lot of injuries, maybe we could assist her first -- help her clean her wounds or something. Noona, have you eaten already?”

I glared at Seungri. Assist her? Was he being Serious? “Seungri, we don’t have much time,” I said through gritted teeth. “Just let her go and let find her way to the clinic, she’ll be freakin’ fine.”

“But I’m okay,” Dara talked to no one in particular. “I’m just here to bring this...I would have wanted to get your original orders but I don’t have time anymore and...I spent the money Jinhee unnie gave me. She’ll be livid if she found out that I wasn’t able to follow the list. I’m so sorry...”

“Well I won’t eat this.”

“Oh my God.” Seunghyun hyung glared at me. “You’d really act like an *ss as much as you can, no?” He took Dara’s right arm, making her cry in pain a little, but I guess Seunghyun hyung was too annoyed to even notice it. “Well I won’t eat either, but I sure will take her to the clinic right now. Dara, let’s go.”

Dara could only whisper yes and both of them left the room without saying a word to anyone of us.

“Well,” I sad, minutes after the two of them left. “I’ll go down to buy something at the caf. Who wants to go with me?”

Seungri, Daesung and Youngbae just looked at each other.

I tapped my foot impatiently. “I’m waiting.”

Seungri grabbed one of the containers Dara placed on the table a while ago. “This is okay, I’ll just eat this.”

What?

“Yeah,” Daesung agreed. He nudged Youngbae to do the same thing. They both took the remaining containers and went back to the sofa so they could start eating. “It will be a waste if we don’t eat this, hyung. This is ok.”

I looked pointedly at Youngbae. “You’re eating that?”

Youngbae just shook his head and started eating. He completely ignored me! A week ago, they were siding me. Fcuk, Dara just had to barge in the room, limping and bleeding, and they completely fall for whatever sh1t she’s doing.

Pissed off, I walked out of the room.

-------------------------------

“Can you walk? I could just carry you, you know. It’ll take forever to go to the clinic if we walk this slow...”

Wouldn’t you know, I’d find these two still not so far away from the recording room. Fcuk. Now I have to wait for them to get out of my sight.

Anyhow, I tried my best to not make a sound as the both of them were busy doing a balancing act because apparently, the girl’s too injured to function.

“Seunghyun, it’s okay. You can go back and eat first. I can manage,”

I rolled my eyes and tried my best not to gag. Please. I can manage my foot. She’s obviously just acting to get more sympathy votes from hyung.

Which by the way, is working really well right now. Hyung looked so concerned. “What happaned to you anyway?” he asked worriedly.

“I told you, I tripped.”

“I’m offended that you simply choose to lie to me. Seriously? I know you forget choreography and song lyrics sometimes, but you’re not that stupid to actually trip that hard by yourself.”

“Well sometimes I trip this hard by myself,” Dara snapped. The sudden change in her tone surprised me. I almost wanted to join in their conversation but I just chose to listen very, very, very quietly instead.

For reasons I didn’t want to know.

“Geez, someone’s upset. I’m sorry,” Seunghyun replied softly. He tucked a strand of hair on her ears to take a closer look at her. “You didn’t trip, did you? Just tell me if somebody pushed you or something. Because I’m pretty sure someone harassed you along the way.”

Dara this time simply ignored hyung’s last sentence. She continued holding on to his support instead.

But hyung wasn’t one to give up easily. “Just tell me what happened,” he pressed.

Dara sighed audibly. “Some fan just got mad at me, that’s all.”

“Whose fan was it?”

Yeah, I silently agreed with hyung’s question. whose fan was it?

Dara, on the other hand, didn’t say anything. That made hyung gasp in surprise, as if he realized something shocking. “One of Jiyong’s fans? I get it, surely it was one of his fans, I’ve read something in our fan cafe that was relating you to him...that was it, right?”

“Oh tell me about it,” Dara answered back with a bitter laugh, fully confirming hyung’s guess. “Girl made sure I got the point of not hurting Jiyong by shoving me to the ground as hard as she could.”

So it was one of my fans, I thought to myself as I continued watching them. I’ll be forever glad that my fans would go through hell to make sure I won’t get hurt but...why do I feel a rush of anger the moment I learned that something like this happened to Dara?”

This is a sick, sick joke.

“hyung,” I called out. Both of them turned around to see me standing not too far away from them. Hyung’s face was grim, while Dara’s face showed confusion.

“Youngbae,” I started, a bit uncomfortably. “Y-Youngbae wanted to discuss something with you. A-about, a-about some of the verses I-I w-was trying to make you t-two h-harmonize?”

Seunghyun hyung raised his eyebrows. He knew I was lying, but strangely enough, he played along. “Okay. They sure finished their meal fast, huh? I’ll go there right now.” He gently let go of Dara’s right arm. “I’ll be back, can you wait here for a while?”

Dara just nodded dumbly at him. Seunghyun gave her a little smile and went straight to recording room without even looking at me.

I waited for him to close the door before finally focusing on Dara, who was leaning on the wall and still avoiding my gaze.

“Dara.”

She didn’t look up. Irritated, I carried her in one swift motion so fast that she didn’t realize what was truly happening until she was holding on to my neck for dear life because I was running as fast as I could to reach the corner.

“What are you doing?” her voice sounded really shaky and nervous. “Why are you running?”

So we can disappear before Seunghyun hyung comes back after realizing what a pathetic stunt I pulled just so I could be with you alone. “It will take you forever to go to the clinic. Your wounds should be attended to immediately.”

“Jiyong, this is not the right way to the clinic...”

“I realized that,” I answered back. “So we’re not going to the clinic because it’s far, and I will be the one who will attend to your wounds.”

That must have shocked her. She gasped, but she didn’t say anything until I found the room I was looking for so I could check her injuries more closely.

“Just sit here,” I gently removed her arms away from my neck and helped her sit up on the table a few seconds after we entered the room. “I’ll just get something to stop your cuts from bleeding...”

-------------------------------------

“Ouch!”

“You should really stop acting like a five year old kid.”

About ten minutes must have passed since I started helping her clean her wounds and unexpectedly, our interaction wasn’t awkward at all.

If anything it was like the old times, back when I haven’t even fallen for her yet.

Or maybe back when I was slowly falling for her.

Fcuk, what I meant to say was back when I was about to make the most stupid mistake of my life as of late.

There.

“It’s fcukin painful,” Dara cursed under her breath. She winced as I continued dabbing the wet cloth on her injured knee. “Please stop doing it...”

“No, if I did it will get infected. Do you want it to scar?”

“No! but I’d rather ask my sister for some whitening cream or something later on. I’d just -- ouch!” She yelled. “I said it fcukin hurts!”

“Maybe if you stopped moving I’d be able to clean it faster! Why did you let those girls push you so hard anyway...”

“I didn’t see them. I was so busy with making sure I get your orders in time so Jinhee unnie would be one happy bossy staff member.”

I couldn’t help myself, I laughed at her sarcastic remark. She just looked at me weirdly, and right then and there I knew we were starting to get too comfortable with each other.

I immediately stopped laughing and cleared my throat. “Just hold it in for a little longer. I’m almost done.”

Another five to ten minutes have passed. She did hold in the pain for a longer time until I was able to treat every wound she had. It was better that way...I hope she didn’t hear how fast my beating heart was. Why the hell did I take her away anyway?

“There,” I said quietly as I placed the last band-aid on her left arm. “you’re good to go.”

“Thank you.” She said shyly.

“Dara?”

“Yes?”

“I...” Really? I have something relevant to say to her at this minute?

And when did our faces become so close to each other?!

“Jiyong...”

Damn, I was pushing this sh1t as best as I could, huh. Our faces were less than an inch closer, and my eyes were having it’s own life again -- it was looking longingly on her lips (again!), for goodness sake!

Fcuk. My. Life.

“You’re g-getting c-closer...”

Damn right I’m getting closer. I’m closing this tiny gap between us with a kiss. Right now.

I shouldn’t be left alone with her, and I hated myself for constantly dragging myself into sh1t like this all the damn time.

But then again, her lips were as soft as I imagined it to be ever since I toyed with it at Mina’s birthday not too long ago. It was still the same inviting, vulnerable, ‘kiss me regardless of your feelings’ lips that left me wanting more even at the most ungodly times that the only thing I could do to stop it is to constantly repeat inside my mind that she is a disgusting girl. And funny because I’m doing it now, but she set her lips apart so I could deepen the kiss. I’m having weird feelings.

Dara is a disgusting girl. Dara is a disgusting girl. Dara is a disgusting girl.

Her hands found their way on my hair and she caressed them wonderfully, sh1t .

I should never have thought of the word ‘disgusting’ right at this moment.

Because. The. Word. Is. Turning. Me. On. More. Than. Ever. Fcuk.

Did I say fcuk?

“Jiyong,” she moaned. She was all over me now, and I was the same to her.

I better stop this already. The kiss was more addicting that I thought, I’d be dead If I let myself fall deeper into it. Damn Dara for being a good kisser.

I roughly pushed her away from just as she was starting to pull me closer. I did this to her before, but she was still surprised with what I did.

“Jiyong...?”

I took a few steps back and took a few deep breaths. Sh1t. She tried to touch my arm but I slapped it away.

“I thought...I thought this time we’re gonna be okay...”

I just sneered in response. My face must have changed into something worse because her face showed hurt. Well sorry, she should have been more aware of the situation.

I just kissed her. It didn’t mean anything.

Or maybe it did mean something, but it’s not gonna make come back to her and be a fool for her again.

She finally understood what all of this meant. “Oh, Jiyong,” She cried. “What can I do to make you love me again?”

“Love you again?” I asked, making sure that each word were punctuated with disgust. Never mind that I was feeling that dull ache inside my chest again. “Dara...” I went back to where she was and touched her face gently, almost lovingly. She closed her eyes as if she was waiting for me to say that everything is okay, but the next thing I said was the exact opposite of what she was thinking.

“Let’s not go crazy. I won’t be coming back.”

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Preview: Chapter 31

Dara:

“I’m not giving this up, father.”

Mina’s father looked enraged at what she said. Without any warning, he slapped her face harshly. In front of everyone.

But Han Mina remained calm. We knew that slap humiliated her than it hurt her, but being the strong girl that she was, she just stood there and looked straight in her father’s eyes.

“Don’t make me slap you harder than that, woman,” her father threatened coldly. “You will stop this nonsense right now. You’re coming home with me. To Paris.”

“NO!” Mina screamed. Hot tears fell down her cheeks. It was a scary sight to see, something that we didn’t expect to happen at all. “I’m staying here! Umma supports my decision and -- “

Another harsh slap landed on her other cheek. “Your mother doesn’t know anything. If she does, she won’t let you do this and make a fool of yourself.”

He walked away as he made some calls on his mobile phone, while Mina was left behind, sobbing uncontrollably. We all rushed to her and started comforting her.

“I’m so sorry guys,” Mina said in between sobs. “I said I will stay here but I know father, he probably would go as far as suing President Yang himself and the rest of YGE if I didn’t go with him...”

“You’re dropping out? You can’t do that, you’re part of the line-up already!”

“Oh, Dara unnie,” she answered back, her voice full of grief. “You don’t know him. The best thing to do is to quit.” She looked up to meet my gaze, but instead her eyes landed on another girl.

Her expression of grief turned into shock, then to momentary anger, then back to grief.

“Jiang Aera,” Mina whispered in disbelief, her tears continuously falling down her cheeks. “What are you?”

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