Baekhyun smiled widely as he set his feet on South Korea’s soil again after quiet a long time. He barely believed that he hadn’t been in Korea for one full month, but he did. The tight schedule of SMTOWN world tour, EXO worldwide concerts, and the joined shooting with EXO-M in China for their first drama together had made him left Korea for the longest time ever.

He missed Korea very much. He missed his parents though he didn’t meet them often, he missed the food, he missed the EXO dorm, but moreover, he missed his girlfriend. Sure, he kept in touch with her through texts and calls, but nothing beat the feeling of being with her together for real. Baekhyun longed to saw her smile with his own eyes and feel her calming warmth again after being away from her for such a long time.

“Baek, you should see this.”

Chanyeol’s deep voice snapped him out of his reverie. They were already on the van, on the way back to the EXO dorm. It was almost midnight when they arrived in Korea so they went straight to the dorm to take their much needed rest.

“What is it?”

“Just look at this picture.”

The main rapper said with a serious voice while handing Baekhyun his phone. There was no hint of smile in his usually cheerful face, which meant that it was bad news. Baekhyun suddenly got an unpleasant sensation in his stomach and immediately snatched the phone. He immediately cursed.

“! How can this happen?”

“What is it Baek?”

Suho eyed him curiously. The other boys, and also the manager were already fallen asleep, leaving just the three of them that were still awake.

Baekhyun ignored Suho’s question. His mind still froze in surprise. He vaguely heard Chanyeol talked to Suho but all he could do was to look at the picture in the screen in front of him. It was a picture of him with a Chinese actress whose name he didn’t even remember locked in an embrace. Or at least, the way the photo was taken made it seemed like they were having a love affair or something, which of course, was far from the truth.

Baekhyun knew exactly when the picture was taken. It was taken on the party that was held to celebrate the finished production of EXO new drama. Baekhyun was having a drink when out of a sudden he was grasped by the clearly drunk actress who couldn’t even stand on her own. He knew her face, she was given a small role in the drama but he never had any scene with her or talked to her before. However, Baekhyun then reflexively held her body, prevented her from falling. The manager of the actress immediately approached them while apologizing to him in Chinese, so fast that he couldn’t catch all of his words and then brought the actress out of the party room.

But of course, there’s no picture or news whatsoever of the manager approaching them and carrying the actress away from him. The only picture that was leaked was his picture with the actress, that would of course, potentially cause a scandal.

Baekhyun gritted his teeth when he saw that the photo already went viral on the net. The EXO boys, and the rest of the SMTOWN just went through hours of flight from New York, so it’s no wonder that they managed to catch this photo just now.

“It’ll be fine Baek. We all there and witnessed what was really happen. Don’t worry, if anything strange arises, we’ll clear things up immediately.”

Suho’s soothing voice penetrated his ears, but for once, it didn’t calm Baekhyun like it usually did. All he thought was whether Ahreum already saw this, and considering there was a pretty big chance that she already did, he knew he should clear this up with her first and foremost. He grabbed his cell phone and saw that it was totally dead. But it didn’t matter, he already intended to go straight to her apartment as soon as he arrived in Korea.

“I know, but it takes time Hyung, and I have to explain this to Ahreum immediately if she’s already seen this, and give her a heads up if she hasn’t. It’s bad enough that we haven’t seen each other in a month, and then this happen. I’ll go to her place as soon as we arrived at the dorm.”

Baekhyun said to Suho in an agitated voice. It was a statement, not a question, and for once, instead of forbidding Baekhyun to sneak away from the dorm at night, Suho just nodded.

“Just be careful with your disguise Baek, we don’t want to add another scandal.”

Baekhyun just nodded as his jaw tightened.

As soon as the elevator dinged, Baekhyun walked in a hurry towards the familiar corridor until he stopped in front of his girlfriend’s door. Not taking a few moments to catch his breath, he grabbed into his jeans pocket and let out his spare key, while praying that Ahreum didn’t forget to withdraw her key from the door like she usually did at night, just in case he would come to her place late at night, such as this time.

He turned the key and sighed in relief when he heard a click sound. He turned the doorknob and slowly opened the door, in fear of waking her up and stepped inside. He was expecting to see her soundly asleep on her bed at this time of night, not sitting in the cold floor of the living room by herself, hugging her knees and staring blankly at the floor. Things that just seemed like random colorful papers scattered messily around her.

“…..Ahreum?”

Baekhyun called her name from right in front of the door. His tone was a little hesitant.

The girl gasped in surprise and turned her head, clearly didn’t realize that she had a visitor in the first place.

“Hyunnie?”