Violet’s POV:

  I look at the hand extended in front of me. It looks, I don’t know, strong? Like it would crush my hand?

  Maybe it really can.

  “Nice to finally meet you, Kim Jung In,” the boy standing in front of me says. “I’m Jason. Jason Lee.”

  Jason has short, brown hair with a few streaks of silver messed up in an annoyingly handsome way, brown, soulful eyes, a strong jawline and a lean body. He’s about as tall as Sehun, but a little more bulky. No wonder Tess would have succumbed to his charms this fast.

  But wait, what did he mean by ‘finally’?

  “N-nice to meet you, too.” I awkwardly shake his hand and mentally gasp when he brings my hand to his lips and –

  And kisses it.

  I hear Theresa, Chohee and Melanie gasp, but Jason just smiles as if it’s what he does every day, kissing girls’ hands. “I’m a big fan of yours.”

  “E-excuse me?”

  “I’m a big fan of yours,” he repeats. “I am so thrilled to meet you that the inner me is squealing like crazy now.”

  “Er, thanks?”

  “And you are so beautiful. Even prettier in real life.”

  My eyes widen at his bluntness. One minute ago he was kissing Tess, and now he’s saying I’m beautiful?!

  “Did I also mention that your eyes are as alluring and captivating as dark chocolate?”

  “Don’t you think he’s cute?”

  “I think he’s a jerk.”

  “Mel – “

  “Tess,” Melanie puts the CD in the player. “He just said Violet’s eyes are ‘as alluring and captivating as dark chocolate’ 60 seconds after he had that making out session with you.”

  Theresa groans and slams the cabinet door. “Okay, so maybe that was a little… playboyish. But Jason’s a really nice guy – “

  “And you’ve known him for what, 5 minutes?” Chohee snorts. “I didn’t like it when he was all over Jung In, you know.”

  “Ohmygod and what he said to Violet…” Melanie shudders and turns to me. “Are you creeped out like me, Violet?”

  I pretend to be busy with my phone.

  Melanie rolls her eyes. “What are you doing, Ms. Dark-Chocolate-Eyes?”

  “Texting Elise to see where she is,” I retort back, but the truth is, I’m only fiddling uselessly with my phone, because my mind can’t stop replaying what just happened…

 [Flashback]

  “Sorry, Mr., but she has a boyfriend already.” Chohee came to my rescue after Jason made that surprising compliment, but then I realized that the relationship between me and Sehun should be a secret. At least, a secret among the company.

  People who just got in for an hour shouldn’t know yet.

  “I know.”

  A wave of terror struck me when Jason said those two words. “Oh Sehun, right?” The way he said his name… was like saying a distasteful combination of words, and it made me want to punch him.

  “How do you – “

  “A little bird told me,” he said with a hint of smugness. He smiled a smile that looked dangerously like a smirk, and right that instant I decided to hunt that bird down before it could go squawking around.

  My and Sehun’s relationship is a secret, and it should stay like that. It would stay like that; that’s what we both promised Sooman appa and Mr. Kim.

  “Oh don’t worry,” Jason seemed to have seen the panic in my eyes and winked at me. “I know it’s a secret, but rumors are flying, you know. And both of you haven’t denied the rumors yet; so who really knows what might happen if…” he pretended to be deep in thought by tapping his chin and leaning toward me. “Someone in the same company let slips some useful… hints?”

  I secretly gasp. I couldn’t distinguish if he was just joking or if he was serious, but one thing was clear.

  That was a threat.

  “Nice meeting you, Violet,” Jason whispered in my ear, and I shivered at the closeness and his hot breath. “See you around.”

 [Flashback End]

  “I mean, come on, did you see how tongue-tangled Violet was?!”

  “I know, right? Usually she just bombs back at people with annoying but unable-to-retort-back remarks, but she totally turned into a statue when Jason was having his hands all over her.”

  I snap back to reality. “He did not have his hands all over me.”

  Melanie puts her hands on her hips. “Hello? He kissed your hand, called you beautiful, winked at you, and whispered in your ear.”

  “See, no ‘hands all over me.’”

  “But he was being intimate with you!”

  “He – “

  “Who was being intimate with who?!”

  As soon as I hear that voice, additional to the giddy feeling I always feel, I mentally groan because this is just not the right time.

  Sehun’s footsteps are heavy and rushed, and I stare at his rainbow-colored socks when he stomps right up to me. “Somebody was being intimate with you?! When?! Where?! Why?!”

  “You forgot the ‘How’ and ‘What’…” I mumble.

  “KIM JUNG IN!”

  “I don’t know, okay?!” I take a step back, frustrated. “I mean, I don’t know why he did it, and – “

  “HE?!” Sehun’s voice has become so high-pitched that I cringe. “It was a ‘he’?!”

  Um, hello? Do I look like I would be intimate with a girl?

  “Oppa – “

  “It was a new guy, Sehuna.” Chohee puts a hand on his shoulder. “She was totally caught off guard by his forwardness – “

  Before she can finish her sentence, Sehun suddenly grabs my arm and drags me out of my training room with just my socks on, into the secluded stairway. He backs me to the white wall. “Sehun – “

  He drops my hand and puts his right hand on the wall next to my head. “I don’t want to hear her explain it for you; I want to hear you tell me yourself.” He looks dead serious. “What did Melanie noona mean by somebody being intimate with you?”

  “He wasn’t being intimate – “

  Sehun growls.

  “He just kissed my hand, okay?” I feel my heartbeat accelerate, because I have never heard him growl before, and he weren’t this angry now, I would have thought it somehow – cough – y. “And… and maybe he even called me beautiful… and whisper in my ear…” I wring my hands. “But boys have done that to me tons of times in my previous movies, MVs, and CFs, Sehun! It’s not different – “

  “It’s different, Jung In!” Sehun takes a step closer to me, swallowing up the space between us. “Those were just for the screen, and you would even tell me every time before the shooting about those scenes with other boys. But this time, it wasn’t for the screen, and he did it when you least expected, right?”

  I nod slowly. Sehun eyes me, studying me. “What, is there more?”

  “W-well…” after gulping and bracing for his explosion I expect would happen, I tell him about how Jason knows the relationship between me and Sehun, how it’s supposed to be a secret, and the threat.

  As Sehun starts raging (of jealousy, I guess), I shut my eyes but I don’t regret telling him. We never keep secrets from each other, not even stuff like this, and I wouldn’t want to be the one who breaks that promise first between us.

  “Maybe I should go confront him – “

  “Andwae!” My eyes shoot open, and I grab Sehun’s collar. “He knows who you are, remember? And he didn’t really do anything to me – “

  “He was being touchy with somebody’s girlfriend, Jung In. He was being touchy with my girlfriend. That’s enough to make me want to punch him.”

  “Oppa…” I gently release my grip on his shirt and touch his cheek. “It’s okay… I swear, it won’t happen again.”

  Sehun frowns, but I can feel him slightly lean into my palm. “Jung In…”

  “Next time he tries being one meter near me, I’ll karate-kick him in the , arrasso?” I crack a smile. “I’ll let him clearly know where the line is.”

  “Maybe I should still – “

  I wrap my arms around Sehun’s neck and pull him in. He’s surprised first at the sudden kiss, but a millisecond later he responds with such intensity and passion my knees almost buckle underneath me, if he weren’t steadying me by pushing me against the wall.

  “I’ll be fine, Sehun oppa. I love you. No need to worry, arrasso?”

  He gives me another light peck on the lips before pouting. “Arra… I love you, too. But still, next time if he tries anything, call me and I’ll be there to fling him to outer space in less than a second.”

    Leina’s POV:

  Tugging my skirt for the umpteenth time, I take a deep breath and open the door.

  “Leina!”

  I hear the familiar cheery voice as soon as I stand straight from bowing, and amongst the twenty faces in the room, I smile at the face I find first. “Baekhyun sunbaenim.”

  He smiles back and gets up from his chair. “How’s your day?”

  “Um, it’s 8 in the morning…”

  “Well, today I didn’t have to pick clothes from the ground, so I’d say it was just a normal day,” Baekhyun says while giving me a teasing smile.

  “YAH!” I feel the temperature of my face rise. “Stop talking about my…” I lower my voice into a whisper, “accident. It was… embarrassing.”

  He shakes his head as I sit in a chair on his left. “It was cute, Leina. Great way to meet someone new. Oh, right,” he leans back to motion to the person on his right. “Leina, ‘cause you two haven’t officially met yet,” I feel my heartbeat literally stop. “This is – “

  “Kyungsoo.”

  His name slips out of my mouth effortlessly like it used to a million times before, as I stare at the face less than a meter away. I feel tears building up but I blink them back – I can’t afford crying in front of twenty people just because I see my first love again. Kyungsoo is looking at me in a way I’ve never seen before, and so I eagerly search his face for anything – happiness, surprise, acknowledgement. To see if he remembers me. But then I feel my stomach start to drop and my fingers turn cold, because –

  Because there’s nothing. There are no emotions on his face when he looks at me.

  “K-Kyungsoo – “

  “Annyeonghaseo, Do Kyungsoo imnida,” he says after a blink. “And you are the girl I helped two days ago, right? Nice to meet you, Ms.…?”

  I stare at him with unbelief. Can’t he see? It’s me! ME! Leina! His childhood friend! “Leina,” I reply, my tone a little rushed. “Kim Rae Na, but I go by Leina, Kyungsoo don’t you remember – “

  When I said my name I thought he would remember. Maybe it’s my face, that I’ve changed a little bit too much over these 7 years so he can’t recognize me, but at least he should remember my name, right? I mean… shouldn’t at least something flicker in his eyes when he hears my name?

  But nothing.

  Nothing happened, nothing appeared, nothing flickered on Kyungsoo’s face when I mentioned my name. Not even when Mr. Lee Sooman walked into the white conference room that felt suffocating all of a sudden. Not even when I introduced myself to everyone who was present. Not even when the meeting ended and the fourth singer didn’t appear and I said goodbye to Kyungsoo, did a spark of recognition appear.

  Nothing.

  “Is anything wrong?”

  Baekhyun’s gentle voice startles me in the hallway, because I assumed I was alone so I could cry all the way back to my training room.

  “S-sunbaenim.” I wipe the corners of my eyes with my sleeve. I try to make the movement casual, but Baekhyun still catches it.

  “Leina? Don’t worry, I know you’ll be amazing for the song – “

  I shake my head and force a smile. “I’m not… worrying about that.”

  “Then what are you crying over?” The heat of his body attacks me as he steps closer. “Why… why are you crying?”

  “I’m not – “crying, I finish in my head when the tears finally become free and start pouring out, streaming down my cheeks like rivers and hitting the floor so ferociously, Baekhyun decides to catch them with his shirt. He engulfs me with a hug so warm and so tight, I’ve never been hugged like this before, not even Kyungsoo –

  Kyungsoo.

  “I-I’m terribly sorry,” I apologize as I pull away from Baekhyun. “Mianhae… for your shirt.”

  “Leina,” he looks concerned and disturbed, but I just shake my head.

  “It’s nothing, sunbaenim.” I force a tiny smile. “I should be crying about how happy I am to be in a collaboration song rather than over Kyungsoo, right?”

  I turn before seeing Baekhyun’s reaction, but it isn’t until I reach my training room do I realize I accidently admitted to him that I was crying, and that it was because of Kyungsoo.

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[Author's Note] T___T Imma just go cry in the corner now.

OMG PLS DO YOU GUYS KNOW HOW HAPPY I ALWAYS AM WHEN I READ YOUR COMMENTS AND EVEN THOSE WHO SAY THEY'RE ANTICIPATING FOR THE NEXT CHPATER OMG I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH. But please don't strangle me becoz I made Leina cry... /sobs/

There's a reason. Seriously. And it would be revealed in the next chapter... I guess? Hehe. Maybe just a little.

And BIG SPOILER "LEINA AND BAEK ARE GONNA GO ON A NOT-ACTUALLY-A-DATE DATE SOON!" HEHE