The next day went smoothly…for the most part. I finally got around to cleaning so Min Ki and I could get out of that hotel. The place came furnished but I had P.O. come over and move some stuff around. If I’d really wanted to, I could have moved the stuff myself, but I hadn’t seen the kid in a while.

“Where’s my nephew?”

I laughed. Including P.O., Min Ki now had six uncles. The poor kid was gonna have a hard time with honorifics. “He’s with my mom,” I told him. “How have you been?”

“Pretty good actually.” A wide grin spread across his face. “We’re making a comeback soon,” he announced.

“Oh P.O., that’s great!” I flung my arms around him. I knew how much this meant to him. “Now I have to buy you lunch to celebrate.”

“Have I ever told you that you were my favorite noona?”

****

As we were walking to the restaurant, people, especially girls, kept staring and pointing at us. Some of them were even whispering behind their hands. I started to get annoyed but chalked it up to one of the things that happens when you’re friends with idols.

The pointing and whispering continued as we were waiting for our food. P.O. asked any question he could think of to take my mind off of it.

“How is Baro hyung doing?”

I looked down at the table. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him since…you know.”

“He’s a guy noona. He doesn’t know how to talk to you now.”

“I can’t worry about him,” I said, despite the pang in my heart when I spoke. “Besides, Minsoo and I are getting along fine.”

“Are you two together?”

“We’re trying…I’m not sure what to call it.” My mind wandered back to the conversation from the night before.

Min Ki was asleep inside the room and CAP and I were talking quietly in the hall.

 “What happened with you and Andy sojangnim?”

“He basically said he felt like I should know he didn’t like me.”

“That doesn’t sound like something he would say.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Your boys are cute. They were surprisingly good with Min Ki.”

CAP went along with my change of subject. “I think they had fun today.”

I nodded. “A lot has been going on. How are you holding up?”

“It’s a change, but I like it. I wish I had more time to spend with you guys.”

His statement raised a question in my mind. “Minsoo…what are we?”

“Does it matter?”

“Not really, or at least not to me, but people keep asking and now I want to know.”

“What do you want to be?” he asked.

“You know, I really hate it when you do that.”

“Do what?”

“Answer my questions with questions. It’s like your one word answer thing.”

He chuckled. “You didn’t answer me.”

“I asked first,” I pointed out, but he just waited for me to say something. “Honestly, I want to try. We…we were heading in that direction before, despite what was going on then. I think we owe it to each other and Min Ki to at least attempt a relationship.”

“I agree,” he answered. I narrowed my eyes at him. “What? That was two words,” he defended.

“…noona, are you listening to me?”

“Sorry P.O., I spaced out a bit. What were you saying?”

“I think we should leave.”

Now I was confused. “We haven’t even gotten our food yet. What’s wrong?”

“I’ll show you when we get back to your place.” He grabbed my hand and practically dragged me out the restaurant and down the street. Something was wrong. P.O. didn’t act like this.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“We’re almost to the house.”

I noticed that we were being followed by a small mob of girls. I was almost breathless trying to keep up with P.O.’s long, frenzied strides. We managed to lose the mob and made it to the house safely. It took me a moment to catch my breath long enough to see what the panic was all about.

“Where’s CAP hyung?”

“They had practice for something today. Why?”

He reached in his pocket and handed over his phone. I glanced at the screen and almost dropped it. A picture from the day before was enlarged on the screen-Min Ki sitting on CAP’s lap while Ricky offered the child a piece of a pastry. There was a red circle around my head where I was sitting between CAP and L.Joe. I scrolled up the screen and the bolded headline made my palms sweat.

Teen Top Plays House

I groaned and gave the phone back, refusing to read further. This was wrong on so many levels. Why? Why was this happening? Did my misery amuse the gods so much they couldn’t help themselves? I slumped down the wall I was leaning on and banged my head against it.

“Noona, someone’s calling you.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“It’s Andy sunbaenim.”

.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Do you see what you’ve done? You should have stayed where ever you were. Now I have to figure out a way to fix this.”

“Excuse you.”

“What?”

This guy was obviously not used to someone talking back to him. “Look, you don’t get to talk to me any kind of way. Both of us are adults and I deserve the same respect that I try to show you. Now, listen to me and you listen good. I am doing what I should have done a long time ago-I’m taking responsibility for my actions. I could have done a lot of damage if I’d wanted to. I could have gone to every news outlet and gossip site on the web and told the world I was having an idol’s baby, but I didn’t. Has that ever crossed your mind?”

The other line was silent.

“No, you didn’t think about the damage I could have done. I could have destroyed those boys if I wanted, but I didn’t because I had the respect for them, for CAP, and for you to just get out of the way. Now, if you want to talk about this rationally and have me help you come up with a solution or an explanation, I would be all for it. Otherwise, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call my phone again.”

I hung up and threw the phone down on the couch. Enough was enough. My business was out on the street and I’d been talked down to one time too many. I was starting to get a headache.

“You know, you’re really scary when you’re angry.”

Oops. I’d forgotten about P.O. He was regarding me warily and I let out a huge breath to try to calm down. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. Just remind me to stay on your good side.”

My phone was ringing again and I picked it up without checking the ID. “Hello?”

“Hey. I just saw the news. How are you?”

“Sunwoo?”

“Yes, it’s me. Now, are you okay?”

My heartbeat picked up just from his voice. Why did he still affect me this way? I was with CAP now. I couldn’t go there in my head. “I’m fine. I haven’t read the actual article and I don’t care to.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why does everyone keep thinking I’m going to break?”

“The last time you couldn’t handle something, you ran away. I’m just concerned about you.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just a bit annoyed. Thank you for caring though,” I said a bit more gently.

“I’d never stop caring about you.” I heard something on the other end. “I’ve gotta go. You can call me if you need to.”

He hung up before I could say anything. After assuring him that I would be fine on my own, P.O. left to meet his hyungs for their schedule. I called my mom, explained the situation, and asked her to keep Min Ki for the night to keep him away from the drama. She agreed and I was able to effectively think through the past few hours.

The main thing was that I was no longer a secret. I just prayed that crazy fans wouldn’t find me and egg my house, or try to harm me or my child. The thought alone had me anxious. I also really wanted to talk to CAP but I wasn’t sure whether or not Andy had gotten to him yet. There was also the not so small incident of Baro calling out of the blue when I hadn’t heard from him in almost two weeks. What did that mean exactly?

Why was life a kdrama?