Chapter 24

Saela

“Why are there so many people outside?” Jae asks, looking out the window on her side of the van. I peer past her, sitting up in my seat as we pull up to the curb. “Is there anything special happening today, Unnie?”

“Not that I know of,” she says, eyeing the people with narrowed eyes. She looks back at us; more like me, and then tells us to wait here. All of my nerves stand up on end. My mind explodes with worry that someone saw us, but I keep myself composed. No one could have seen us. Probably.

When Unnie exits the car, the crowd of people swarm in. They have cameras, flashing and recording, and microphone with them. I watch with concerned eyes as the surround Unnie. Jae turns to look at me, her face showing me that I’m not the only one who’s worried. Although she has no idea what happened the other day with Woohyun and I, it’s good to know she’s worried. Unnie opens the door in front of Jae. “Get out quickly and go straight inside,” she says, her face dark.

“Unnie, what’s going-” Jae starts to ask but Unnie quiets her and pulls her gently out of the car. The reporters explode with noise, questions all coming inside the van at once. Then suddenly they quiet, I step out onto the sidewalk and one steps out to meet me.

“Is it true?” the small woman with striking features asks me, taking me off guard.

“What?” I ask, almost laughing. This seems like a joke almost; I didn’t think this actually happened. If I wasn’t so worried already I think I would have laughed at them all.

“They have multiple pictures and videos of proof,” another one adds stepping close. Unnie puts up her arm out in front of me to keep them away. I hope that they can’t see my fear. But they couldn’t possibly have pictures and videos of that, could they? “How much do you think the public already believes?” Taking in all of their expressions, I know they don’t and I mentally sigh in relief. Whatever it is that they have, it could not be nearly as bad as what I dreaded. Thank god that will stay a secret, I think as Unnie gently walks through the people.

“We have no comment at this time,” Unnie says, breeching through the clump of people. I follow behind her, numbly wonder what is going on.

“Did you really seduce him?” I hear one say behind me. I stop, turn around slowly and look at them all.

“What are you talking about?” I ask desperately, hoping for confirmation that they definitely don’t know. Unless he told someone. Unnie arm is around my shoulder, pulling me with her. She’s telling me to come with her, but I can only watch the faces of the reporters; all judging me with vicious or understanding faces.

“SaeHyun,” is repeated by almost every mouth in front of me. “It’s been revealed.”

“How do you even-”

“Saela, get inside!” Unnie’s voice is strong and I flinch against it. I look back at the reporters once more, laugh harshly and then follow her inside. “You shouldn’t have responded like that,” Unnie hisses at me when we retreat inside. Jae’s standing with Krystal inside and comes running over to me, but Unnie is still in mom mode. “When I tell you to do something, you’re supposed to do it! Do you understand?” she asks, and she succeeds in making me nod sheepishly. It’s not often that people truly scare me, but Unnie is one of them. She turns to Jae with an exasperated look. “Did you find out what they mean?” she asks and Jae nods, handing Unnie her phone. She looks down at it, scrolls down, her frown deepening with every flick of her finger. “How did they get so many pictures?” She groans, handing it to me next. Jae says something, Krystal talks too I think, but I don’t hear anything. I can’t hear anything at all. The screen reads “SaeHyun: Real and Serious”. My jaw tightens as I scroll, only looking at each picture for a second, my eyes grazing over the captions and anger bubbling in my veins. So many of the pictures are harmless; Woohyun and I sitting at the piano, me on stage, me sleeping (I wonder where he got this), us in a shop, us in a café; but all together they seem to amount to a lot. I just pray every time I scroll down that there won’t be a mention of it. I reach the bad ones. One from the auditions which makes me shudder, one of Woohyun’s arm around my shoulder as I look up at him, one of us sitting outside the building with my head on his shoulder, and lastly a video. I click it because I want to know at what time they took a video of us together and I immediately regret it. It’s of the auditions, but it’s cleverly edited so you can’t tell where we are and the only thing you hear is Woohyun say “I love you” and then we kiss. I the phone away from me at Jae, closing my eyes before I remember the feeling. Too late, I’m already shaking. He must have said something to make this all start up.

“Saela, it’s not true so you have nothing to worry about,” Jae says comfortingly, taking the phone form my hand. “You just have to explain that you guys are close-”

“I don’t have to explain anything,” I lash out, my eyes opening at her. I feel so angry right now, I think I might hit her. So I back up; I really don’t want to hit her. “Woohyun has to explain everything. This is his fault. All of his damn pictures!” I point to the phone and Jae’s eyes are wide and frightened. Krystal steps forward and puts a hand on my shoulder.

“It might be his fault,” she says calming, obviously not scared by my sudden outburst, “but you’ll both have to fix this. It’ll be much better if you work together.” I look at her in the eyes, she looks sincere and sympathetic and that makes me even more pissed. I spin on my heel and go for the door again, yanking my phone out of my pocket.

“You can’t go out there again!” Unnie shrieks as I reach for the handle, but I’m too pissed to listen to her. I yank it open, dialing Woohyun’s number at the same time. Luckily it’s not necessary because he and Sunggyu are wading through the crowd of reporters now. I hear Unnie behind me, but the sight of Woohyun avoiding all eye contact with the reporters makes me enraged. I stop when the reporters see me, realizing that this was really and terrible idea and let Unnie pull me back inside. She yells at me more when we’re back inside, but my eyes are glued to the door, waiting for him to come in.

“Nam Woohyun!” I yell when I see his face. He looks at me, and comes in slowly. And as if he really wants to die, he stops and smiles at me.

“Sorry about this,” he says, walking towards me. “I guess we’ll have to sort-” He doesn’t get to finish because he’s too busy getting punched in the mouth. I’m not sure when I decided to hit him, but I regret it after my fist collides with his jaw. The whole room becomes silent, all watching as Woohyun looks back at him with his hand on his jaw. “You really know how to hit someone,” he says, laughing cautiously and dabbing at the blood on his lip. His eyes are still looking at me with the sympathy; he’s not even mad at me. So then I feel terrible.

“I’m so sorry,” I step forward immediately, reaching up to gently look at his lip. “I really shouldn’t have done that,” I say, a sudden lump in my throat making it hard to talk. It hurts me when he laughs a little and lets me examine his lip.

“I deserved it,” he says, and I shake my head, dabbing at the blood. “I’m sorry, Saela.” When I meet his eyes, tears build up in my eyes. I shake my head again and he reaches up to pull my hands away from his face; they’re shaking.

“I’ll give you two some time to figure things out,” the director says from next to us. I bow to him, wondering numbly when he came over to us. The whole room around us starts to move again as I thank him again and Unnie’s hands on my shoulder again, ushering me through the room and to the hallway. Once the door shuts behind us; Woohyun, his manager, Unnie and I, I slide down the wall and burry my face in my knees. That way the tears that escape are immediately caught and dried by my pants. Unnie and the other manager start talking in hushed tones, and Woohyun sits down next to me.  I can smell him, his usual scent washing over me and giving me shivers. The shivers increase when his warm hand touches my back, rubbing soothingly as I shake.

“I’m sorry,” I say again into my knees. I hear the chuckle I was waiting for and look up at him. His eyes are already on me, and when I meet them, I feel even worse. He looks more concerned for me than he is mad for punching him. “Why aren’t you angry with me?” I sniffle and he smiles.

“It was a good punch,” he says simply, smiling wider at my confused reaction. He winces slightly, touching his lip to see if it’s started bleeding again. It did, and he’s got dried blood on his chin and jaw line. I really hit him well, I think,

“Come here,” I tell him, standing up. Unnie and his manger don’t look at us, they’re too busy staring down at their phones and conversing with grave faces, so I take his hand and pull him inside the women’s bathroom.

“Woah, Saela,” he says, resisting my pulling a bit.

“Fine,” I say, turning around and going next door. If it really bothers him to be in there, then I’ll just feel uncomfortable instead. Because it was this bathroom. But I’ll pretend like I don’t remember.

“You didn’t have to,” he says, gently when I grab paper towels, wet them in the sink and pull him closer to me. I don’t answer, and just wipe the blood off gently. “You know we’re in the midst of a scandal,” he reminds me, but I half ignore him. I’m too disappointed in myself to be angry at anything else. “If we get caught like this, we might as well be telling everyone we’re getting married,” he laughs, and as I look at his smiling mouth, I freeze for a second. I resume cleaning him, getting off the last bit of blood and then dropping my hands and throwing the paper towels in the trash.

“You’re clean,” I tell him, washing my hands in the sink and avoiding looking at him. I shut off the water and freeze when his arms come around my waist from the back. I can only freeze in his arms.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he says, the smile gone from his voice. “I just wanted to show off that I was so close to you. I felt like I needed to share. I’m sorry,” he says it, like a stab in both of my lungs, softly and miserably.

“I know,” I say, letting him stay like he is. One because I crave to feel his skin now; the tingles have become addictive. Two because I don’t want to hurt him again. I wait for him to release me and then turn around. “I’ll make you a deal. If you never apologize again, I won’t ever punch you in the face.” He laughs and I know I’ve succeeded in chasing away his miserableness.

“Promise?” he asks, sticking out his pinky. I lock mine around it and touch my thumb to his.

“Can we get out of here?” I ask, looking around at the urinals and shuddering a little. Woohyun laughs and pushes me out in front of him.

Back in the hall, Unnie and Woohyun’s manager finish talking. They tell us to go in and rehears like any other day; they’ll be able to handle everything as long as we don’t make it worse. We do as we’re told, going back in and taking our spots tentatively. Jae, Sunggyu and Krystal give us worried looks, but Woohyun smiles for me and they’re able to continue normally. We go through the rehearsal, the room quieting awkwardly ever time Woohyun and I take the stage. When we get to our scene, I feel like people are really seeing it for the first time; watching us intently for anything out of the ordinary. Even the director eyes us differently as we “fall in love”, and I feel like he doubts us too. So when “the scene” comes, I’m desperately trying to hold in the tears until they’re needed. I’ve never been a crier, but today they come too easily. I feel weak when I give in to Woohyun’s mouth. I can’t even stop when I taste blood and only end up letting more tears leak out. When he pulls away from me first, I’m reminded where we are. I feel like throwing up and crying more, but I just walk over to a vacant section of the wall and slide down it. Jae joins me, watching Sunggyu and Krystal’s scene with jealous eyes. I watch her; it’s easier to distract myself with her amusing jealousy than to feel Woohyun’s gaze on me from across the room.

Jae helps me heave myself to my feet for the last scene. I feel exhausted already and it’s barely noon. We finish it, thankfully I don’t break down before I’m supposed to, and I really find safety in Woohyun’s arms as he holds me. It feel like he’s comforting me more than just for the scene and he thankfully keeps his arm around my shoulder when the director starts to talk to us about filming.

“We’ll be on location tomorrow,” he reminds everyone, “so make sure to meet us at the correct place and bring all the equipment we may need.” He says a few more things directed at the staff and then tells us we can go. Not surprising to me, he comes over to me as I’m standing by Jae. “It’s unfortunate that this is happening now,” he sighs to me and I nod. It would still be unfortunate if it wasn’t now, I think bitterly. “I just hope that you don’t let this affect the movie or your focus.” He inclines his head and I feel like crying again. The director is a friendly man so he’d never have wanted to say anything like that to anyone. And I feel like he liked me too so I feel even worse for making him say it. I hide in Jae’s shoulder, waiting for Unnie before we do anything. I hear people approaching from behind me, but I stay hidden.

“I’ve arranged a meeting,” Unnie says from behind me. “It will be open to the press and fans. We’ve agreed that Saela and Woohyun will answer any questions they have. Since there isn’t anything going on, you only have to be honest,” she says, placing a hand on my back and making me feel nauseous all over again. There is definitely something, I think bitterly. “Come on, Saela, follow me,” I pick my head up and let her lead me to the back. Woohyun is waiting for us at the back entrance and smiles at me when he holds open the door for us. I want to call him an idiot, but my mouth stays closed. The three of us get into Infinite’s van, Jae and Sunggyu went somewhere else. I’m not sure when Jae left my side but I feel exposed without her next to me. Woohyun’s eyes study me. I can feel them on me as I stare out the window, giving my skin a slight tingle. It’s silent in the car until Unnie leans back to look at us both.

“As I said,” she looks me in the eyes. “Be completely honest.” I think she should know that it’s going to be bad if I’m completely honest, but I just nod. I’ll be as honest as possible, I think, turning back to the window and trying to figure out just how honest that needs to be. I definitely can’t say anything accept that we’re good friends. And that we’ve never done anything other than be good friends. Because that’s not technically a lie.

“We should tell them about what the director said,” Woohyun says, his voice low. I know it’s only meant for me to hear because Unnie is talking to his manage again. “That we’ve been living in our roles so we can get our feelings right.” He looks at me, his guarded face only showing me that he doesn’t want me to know what he’s really thinking. He forces a smile as I nod at him. That’s being honest as well, I think. They don’t have to know that we didn’t actually do that. “Since we’re new actors, it’s been harder for us,” he says like he’s already explaining it to them. It seems like his words mean more than that the scenes have been hard. I think he means his life as been hard because of it. I can’t stop my own arm that reaches across to land on his knee comfortingly. He smiles at me, this one’s not forced and puts his hand on mine. “We’re just best friends,” he says, looking down at my hand and putting his over it. He flips it over and runs his finger along the lines. “Right?”

I nod at him again, the long lasting lump in my throat deciding to never go away. I take back my hand, and face the window again, trying to calm down and swallow the lump along with the feeling of hollow sadness. We arrive at a the Cube Entertainment building before I’ve had time to completely shove the feeling down, but most of it’s gone when Unnie leads me inside and through the doors. President Hong meets us outside a set of large double doors.

“Handle this well,” he says to both Woohyun and I after we bow our greeting to him. We bow again and go through the doors that Unnie and his manger are holding open. Going into hell, I think. In which the only way to survive is to lie.

               HEY! I know it's been awhile since I updated hehe. My bad if you're angry! So here it is. Then next one come tomorrow sometime as a Christmas present for my lovely readers ^.^ (Ugh so greasy. Dang you Woohyun. Apparently it's conatgeous.)

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