Jinki read the news in the morning. He was shocked, he felt like he was betrayed. His friends had been texting him since then, asking like ‘are you crazy?’ and ‘man, are you serious wanna tell publicly?” but he didn’t bother to reply them. Only few though, his closest friend where he replied with ‘ I don’t know why it is revealed’. He thought his relationship was pretty much okay. He thought he had been hiding it quite well. But he guessed, the agency would just find out soon or later. Actually the agency would not mind, they said he can date anyone as long as he can hide it from public. But what he couldn’t believe was when his agency used his relationship with her as a transfer issue from political scandal that has been a hot issue lately. He called his manager and asked ‘why’, yet his manager only said, ‘it already happened, jinki. Now the agency will protect you by saying that you two are just two close friend and from now you have to be silent to whatever that has to do with her’. He wanted to snap back and said ‘but I’m dating her’ but he’d know if he said so, his manager would scold him back with ‘it’s for your own good!’

Actually, Jinki didn’t know where was the point of ‘the your own good’ for him. It was hard already, dating her for almost two years with those mask while hanging out and secret meetings. Now with this news, it’s going to be harder for both of them.

Jinki found himself sitting on his bed, his head was throbbing. The stress and upset feeling were there once again. He wanted to be angry, but in the end he reminded himself that this was his choice to live in this industry. He couldn’t even have a normal life like his friends who didn’t live in the same path as his. For him, he probably had to wait for the next 15 years to finally be able to live normal when it comes to have a relationship with a woman.

He dialed her number, despite of how upset he was right now. Not until few seconds later his call was picked up.

“jinki…”

“what do they want you to say?”

“what else? ‘we’re just close friend’ they said” he heard her chuckling.

There was a silence for half minute, he could hear her breath, and he hoped she didn’t hear him crying.

“I’m sorry” he said.

“no, it’s okay.… we know the risk, we both have agreed, haven’t we?”

Jinki only smiled, there she was, being mature and calm again. He wondered why their relationship could be this long after all, yet he was grateful with that.

“after this, we have to be extra careful. We probably wouldn’t be able to meet as frequent as before until it’s calm again”

“okay…” Jinki whispered, bitter.

“hey babe… we can do it, right?”

Jinki didn’t reply for a while.

“can you?” he finally asked.

He heard her giggled, “No, I can’t. But we’ll do this together. It’s not like you want to end our relationship, Jinki.. you know this noona is madly in love with you”

The state was enough to bright Jinki’s world again, soon he smiled widely. Of course, there’s something else that more matters.

“I love you too”

“you better do” she responded. “I’ll call you later okay, I’ll meet you soon”

With the kiss sound she sent to him on the line, she hung up the phone.

Jinki didn’t want to lie to people. He wanted to tell that he’s indeed dating her. But for now, he better listened to her and be patient. Whatever their agency would tell to make up the story about their relationship, it wouldn’t matter anymore. What matter is they both know they love each other. People don’t have to know the truth. Be their closest friends and family who know the truth, because they wouldn’t judge, wouldn’t criticize but they would understand. And for him, the fact that she would still love him and they were still together, that’s enough for him, that’s enough for both of them.