Chapter 25

Aisha Kim

"Hey everyone, it's Sage. We've been avoiding the media for a bit for good reason, and I could say a lot of ugly things to all y'all, but I'm not gonna. Now, we're still in China, still touring, but these rumors are getting a bit ridiculous. So, I've taken Aisha's camera, and I'm going to round up all the members so they can all just sit down and clear up rumors."

I love Sage. Oh how I love her so much. The last two weeks were complete hell for Jongin and I, media-wise. I resorted to just turning off my phone and writing in my tour journal. I tried not to get out much, because when I did I was ridiculed. These fans...they went from so sweet to nasty in just a few seconds. The concerts were still successful because everyone worked extra hard to keep the fans distracted from the dating issue, but outside that, everything was almost unbearable.

"Aisha, love, c'mon, you're the last one to be round up." Sage said quietly. I knew she was still filming. I'll be putting it online without any special things added to it besides subtitles. I got out of my bunk and made my way to the living room. Everyone was gathered around the now positioned camera as I walked in.

"Are you ready, everyone?" Sage asked. We all nodded.

"Okay, the first rumor: Kai and Pearl are dating."

We all hesitated.

I took a deep breath.

"Yes." I breathed out. Jongin got up and sat next to me.

"We've been together since December...we're sorry we kept this from you for so long." He said. He took my hand with the couple ring on it.

"These are our rings." He said slowly, having our left hands raised in front of the camera for a moment. "I'll apologize for keeping our relationship quiet for so long, but I'm not going to apologize for being happy with her."

I felt a tear fall from my eye. "That's right." I signed. "You can hate us, but that's not going to change anything."

"See, I'm going to put this very gently. How would you like it if you started dating someone, but everyone hated you for it?" Sage said calmly.

"Picture this: you're walking along with your boyfriend or girlfriend and suddenly people just start being rude and nasty just because you happen to really care for and like this person you're with." Minji said. "It's silly, rude, and childish. And I just want to say, that Jewelz supports this relationship." The girls nodded their heads.

"Exo-K supports this relationship." Suho said. The K members nodded.

"Exo-M supports this relationship." Kris said. The M members agreed.

"So, why can't you?" SunJung asked.

"Next question: if they are dating, why did they hide it from us? Well, we just covered that. They didn't want hate." Sage said. It was getting harder for me to sit here and not cry about what's been going on.

"We love you guys a lot, and we've seen that when a kpop idol starts dating someone all hell breaks loose." Jongin said. He sat closer to me, finding my hand to hold tightly. "Our question to you is: why is it okay to sing about love, but not okay to experience love?"

"This whole idea of 'stay away from fill-in-the-blank Oppa' is completely warped. Yeah, it's funny to joke around, but when you start taking it seriously is when it's too far. You do not own us, therefore you do not decide what we do." Luhan spoke up. I mouthed, thank you to him. Another tear fell. I took off my mask for a brief second to wipe it away before putting it back on.

"The last question about the dating issue is: they're in clear violation of their contract, yet they still date anyway. Why are they being so irresponsible? Well, honey, you don't just go 'oh look I like her let's just not think about anything about ourselves.'" Sage said, getting a bit sassy.

"I didn't plan on being with him." I signed. Jongin put his arm around my waist. "It was unexpected and we knew we'd get in massive trouble. Our head manager has already yelled at us for it, making us feel like crap, so we really don't need it from you guys too." I was shaking with anger and sadness. The tears wouldn't stop falling.

"Now for the other question: why did you go out to a club and get wasted?" Sage read out.

"Okay lill questioner. Everyone does it, even famous people. Why does it matter that we go out and drink? The only reason why it's in the news is because we're famous. If we weren't, then you wouldn't hear about it. We just wanted to blow off steam. Yeah, I got really drunk, and so did Baekhyun and Chen. Kai and Pearl were tipsy. But in Korea, it's pretty normal to go out and drink until you're drunk. I'm guessing you're an international fan since you seemed alarmed, but thanks for your concern." Minji said, folding her arms and crossing one long leg over the other.

"If you have any more questions regarding the relationship and or the club 'scandal,' send it to me." Sage said. "One, it gives me something to do as the assistant, and two, so that way if the question is too personal, they-" she pointed to the other members, "-don't have to deal with it. Fair warning, if you're a 'keyboard warrior,' congrats, so am I, let the Internet fighting begin!"

"Thank you for watching." I signed. "This will be completely unedited besides adding subtitles. We'll still be off the media until further notice besides Sage."

"We are One." Exo said, but it was a somber tone.

"Keep Shining!" The girls said while I signed. Sage got up and turned off the camera.

"I hope to God this works." She said, hooking up the camera to the computer. She added in the subtitles with my help and soon it was posted to my YouTube channel. My subscribers kept fluctuating, from 2 million to 1 million 9 hundred thousand. Jongin held me tight against him, placing his head on my back.

"I don't want to feel ashamed for being with you." He mumbled into my back.

I don't want to either.

"I hate this. I hate this so much. We should've never gone to that stupid club." Jongin punched the floor. "Then we wouldn't have to deal with all of this bullcrap. I'm beginning to resent all the girls that had me as their bias."

It's always so hard on the men though. If you weren't famous, we wouldn't be getting hate. We'd be supported.

"These are the times I wished I'd never signed to SM as a trainee." He said, punching the floor again.

Please don't be upset, Oppa.

"I'm not older than you, why'd you call me that?"

You act older than you are sometimes.

Sage came over to us. "Lookie lookie! I already have keyboard warriors! And I'm getting a lot of people saying that they were more concerned about the drinking than the dating. Most of them are Chinese that are saying that. Thank you, Lulu-Oppa for being my translator." She blew a kiss at him. 

I wanted to bawl. 

I felt a sort of injustice. Why did the fans care so much about me, the silent girl that had to constantly use other people to be my voice while my actual voice grew stronger? All this mean talk reminded me clearly of my stepmother and I felt like I'd go into a sort of relapse...

But now I felt really bad for Sage and Luhan. Maybe they'll be able to hide theirs a bit longer than we had. We had been secretly dating five months...if they counted unofficial months it would be seven. Now that I thought about it, it was a miracle that no one found out sooner. Dating for that long without raising too much suspicion in the Kpop world was incredibly uncommon. I prayed silently this hell hole would go away soon. That we'd at least make it to Japan without having to call off the tour for having so much hate.

"Some...but definitely not all of the Chinese fans still love you and will support you guys." Luhan said, reading over Sage's shoulder. "It's the Korean and American fans that are outraged the most."

"Figures." Jongin said.

"Brats." I said strongly. I cleared my throat. At least I can say one or two words without having a coughing fit. We heard the door open and we looked up. It was Minha. I could already tell something was wrong.

"Minha, are you okay?" HeeYoung asked, getting up. She hugged her tightly. I noticed that Minha's face was wet with tears and her eyes were red and pu