February 7th 2015

It had been Polaris’ first full day off in a while, so the girls decided that it would be a nice idea to go out for the day, wondering around the city and just relaxing before they had to return to their crazy schedules, as they were still promoting their latest mini album on music shows, radio shows and through interviews. The following day, for example, was to be filled with an appearance on Sukira radio, followed by a photo shoot for a magazine.

Jimin, however, had chosen to go off with her boyfriend again on a date; Eunjung had worried almost all morning about the two of them, fretting over whether they were being careful and avoiding unwanted attention. Despite the fact that Subin had reassured the leader that they would be, Seohyeon had paid attention to her expression; she had gotten pretty good at reading her member’s emotions by that point, and the worry in the oldest girl’s eyes was obvious to anyone who looked close enough.

Subin knew that Jimin wasn’t being careful enough, that was a given. Seohyeon herself, who shared a room with the visual, was beginning to feel a little concerned. She knew that Jimin was determined not to get found out, but Hanni seemed like the type who didn’t want to hide his relationship from the world. Well, to be honest, Seohyeon had thought, Jimin didn’t either. But she knew what would happen if she let the news get out - SM had suffered enough scandals the previous year and she didn’t want to be the one to kick-start the 2015 run of bad luck.

The five idols tried to spend their day off not worrying about the missing girl, but it was hard to just forget about the fact that with one false move, she could bring netizen hate upon the group. By the time that it was time for lunch, everyone could see that Eunjung and Subin were practically jumping out of their seats, shaking with anxiety. 

“You two,” Chaerin suddenly called out, pointing at them; the waitress looked between the three girls in curiosity, ready to take their order. “You need to calm down. I don’t know why today feels any different to you two, but you need to remember that Minnie does this all the freaking time. There’s nothing to worry about, okay?”

“Can I take your order?” the waitress interrupted shyly, looking from one member to the next as though they were going to jump on her and tell her to shut up.

“Um yes, thanks,” Gayoon piped up, drawing the girl’s attention to her instead of the argument that was fast approaching. “Can we have... Erm... Two soondae jiggae, two kimchi jiggae and one soondubu jiggae please? And five colas, as well,”

When the waitress was gone, Eunjung leaned forward across the table towards her friend. “I don’t know why today feels any different, either,” she told the American quietly. “But it does. I just have a bad feeling that something is going to happen today and it seems like Jimin is the one at the centre of it. And we all know that there’s only one thing that Jimin is doing that could cause drama right now,” she added meaningfully, looking from member to member.

“You mean you think her dating news will get out? That’s what you’re worried about?” Seohyeon asked, the first one to catch on. It did make sense, after all, but Jimin had assured the maknae that her and Hanni had been careful when they went out, hiding their faces and wearing clothes to disguise their true identities.

“Well, think about it,” Subin began, lowering her voice so that anybody who might recognise them wouldn’t hear what they were talking about. “It doesn’t matter how sneaky they’re being about it, the truth always comes out eventually. I don’t even know why it’s such a big deal, having idols dating, but it is - I guess the fans don’t like the idea of their biases being in a relationship or something, I don’t know. But we’ve only been debuted seven months, and I mean, look at how the fans reacted when they found out that Taeyeon unnie and Baekhyun were dating! It was carnage.”

“It’d be bad, basically,” Eunjung summed up. “Not just for Polaris and Acid Teochii, but for Jimin and Hanni, too. Of course, the hate would extend to us, but I could care less. As a group, we can take it. But Jimin on her own?”

“Are you joking?” Chaerin snorted, brushing her hair out of her face impatiently. “Jimin’s skin is tougher than an Elephant’s. She could withstand anything.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Seohyeon butted in, resting her chin on her hands, which were palm-down on the table. “I think it’s all a front. Inside, she’s got to be pretty insecure. You guys don’t room with her so maybe it’s understandable why you don’t notice it, but when we’re on our own, she’s not as y and snappy as she is in front of the rest of you. It’s like she needs to keep her guard up all the time so that when she’s on camera, she’s ready.”

The older idols thought over her words, and finally, Eunjung spoke. 

“Well, it doesn’t really surprise me, to be quite honest with you,” she told them. “You remember that day before our comeback when she walked into the practice room and threw a tantrum because we ordered breakfast without her? She spoke to me in the hallway when she got back; she mentioned that the stress was really getting to her, so I told her that we all felt it and that if she worked with us instead of trying to cope with it on her own, it would be easier for her. A problem shared is a problem halved, after all,”

Gayoon nodded vigorously. “I remember hearing her talking to Hyojin-ah on the phone about it; she seemed really under the weather.”

“Hanni makes her happy, and that can only be a good thing,” Subin decided to add. “But what happens to them both when everyone finds out? Eunjung is right, I just have a bad feeling about today, just like how Jungie was when we found out that Hyo had died. Maybe it’s some sort of sixth sense or maybe we just know Jimin too well; whatever it is, I trust our instincts and I think we should all keep our eyes open, just in case. The last thing we want is to be caught off guard by something.”

Chaerin nodded, considering this. “Well, if you guys think it’s a good idea to keep a close watch on the situation, then I can only agree. I’ll check up on any news when we get back to the dorm-”

“I’m honestly too antsy to stay outside right now,” Eunjung interrupted. “Seriously, guys, I have a really bad feeling about this!”

“Well, why don’t we just collect our food in boxes and eat at home?” Gayoon suggested wisely. “We can order an extra soodubu jiggae for Jimin to show that we really do think about her when she isn’t around and just spend the rest of our day off relaxing at home.”

“Yeah, you could call Kyungsoo oppa over, Jungie,” Chaerin teased the leader, obviously trying to get her mind off of things. “We know how you like to spend your time with him.”

“Oh, shut up,” Eunjung snapped back playfully, rolling her eyes, trying her best to get involved and push her bad feelings to the back of her mind. “We’re friends, we’ve been friends for four years nearly, nothing more,”

“Suuuuuuuure,” Chaerin sang back, drawing her word out to show how convinced she was by her friend’s words.

*

After the five members had returned to the dorm and dished out the food, Chaerin had settled down with her laptop on the sofa, Eunjung to her right and Seohyeon to her left; she had been scrolling through news sites for the past fifteen minutes and kept telling Eunjung that there was nothing. 

“See?” she said for the fifth time in a quarter of an hour. “There’s nothing here about them, I told you you’re too-”

The rest of the group looked up when Chaerin’s sentence cut off in the middle.

“What?” Gayoon asked wearily as the front door opened. 

“Hi, I’m back! Hope you saved me some food!” Jimin’s voice called from the hallway. Polaris looked at each other, eyes wide.

“What is it?” Eunjung hissed urgently. “What did you find?”

“I...” Chaerin trailed off, opening another tab and logging into the leader’s twitter account, just to be certain that the news site wasn’t alone in what they were reporting. Sure enough, when she checked on the Polaris hashtag, all she could see were pictures and angry tweets from fans.

“Chaerin!” Subin prompted from the other sofa. “What is it?!”

Seohyeon leaned over the vocalist’s shoulder and saw what it was that her unnie had found for herself.

“They’ve been found out,” Seohyeon told them, feeling so sorry for her roommate. “A fan took photos of them on their date and they’re all over the internet. The earliest post about it was ten minutes ago, by the looks of things, so I doubt even SM have seen it yet. What do we do now?” the maknae asked, looking towards the leader and the oldest girl in the group.

“What we do now is this,” Eunjung told them fiercely, standing up, fire in her eyes. “I go and call Daeseun and pray that he can fix this while you guys tell Jimin-ah what’s going on. I am going to kill her!” she raged as she stormed out of the room, phone in hand, already dialling their manager’s number. 

“Hey, guys, what did you do nice today?” Jimin asked brightly, taking her scarf off as she entered the sitting room; she was met with four worried stares and a table full of food. “Guys? What is it? You know I was joking when I said you should’ve kept me some food, right? I ate while I was out-”

“With Hanyeul,” Chaerin finished for her. “We know, Jimin-ah. We know where you were, even.”

“What?” the visual asked, confused as she slowly approached the group. “How do you know all that? Did he tell you?”

“He didn’t need to. Jimin, I think you should sit down.” Subin told her firmly, pushing her into Eunjung’s recently vacated seat by her shoulders. 

“Guys, what is going on?!” she asked, clearly getting worried and upset. Chaerin turned the laptop so that the screen was facing her and showed her. Seohyeon watched as her face changed from confused to positively horror-struck.

“I...”

“You were followed, Jimin,” Chaerin informed her softly. “By a fan. The news of your date with Hanni is all over the internet right now. Eunjung is on the phone with manager-nim, trying to sort it all out.”

“I don’t know how that happened!” the dark-haired girl exclaimed, hiding her face with her hands. “We were watching the whole time to see if there was someone following us! I don’t know how I could have missed this!”

“Well, you did,” Seohyeon told her bluntly. “And now I think you should go and talk to Hanni about this and see what he wants to do, because the storm that’s coming is going to be bad for all of us, but especially you two. Here, use the bedroom; I’ll tell Jungie where you’ve gone.”

Jimin stared at the dancer for a few moments, eyes shining with tears, before nodding and gratefully accepting the offer. The second that she was out of the room, Chaerin and Seohyeon sighed.

“Hanni is only going to be worried about her, you know that, right?” Seohyeon told Subin directly. “She’s been barking on about him to me for weeks now and Ace is much more relaxed about things than SM is. He’s going to want her to confess, though, underneath it all, and I think that she will. So we need to be ready to help her out when everything goes crazy, okay?”

“Since when did you become so caring and nice, maknae?” Subin asked, only half joking.

“You guys are my family and I don’t want to see any of you get hurt, that’s all,” Seohyeon defended. “I know it seems like I’m an emotionless most of the time, but really guys. I can’t believe you don’t think that I like any of you,” she huffed, folding her arms across her chest.

“Right,” Eunjung’s voice sounded from behind the four girls. “Daeseun says that he’s working on it; they’re going to be talking to Jimin first and then to the CEO of Ace. Both companies will be releasing statements before the night is out,”

“What did he say?” Gayoon questioned, moving to perch on the arm of the sofa so that she could sit beside Seohyeon, while the leader took her seat next to Chaerin back; the American member chose that moment to receive a text and pulled her phone out to check who it was from.

Eunjung sighed before she answered the vocalist. “He’s really angry, because he had no idea that they were going out at all. He shouted at me that if I had told him beforehand, maybe he could have helped so this might never’ve happened, but then he apologised and said that dating scandals happen to all groups at some point or another. He’s not happy at all. He’s going to call Jimin into a meeting in a few hours so that they can discuss what’s going to happen next and in the meantime, we just need to sit tight and not say anything to anyone. That reminds me, actually - Subin unnie, can you go and lock the door please? He said not to let anyone in and none of us are to leave the dorm.”

“What if some of EXO want to come and see how we’re doing?” Chaerin said, looking up from her phone. “Baekhyun, of all people, just text me and some of them want to visit to give us some moral support.”

Eunjung shook her head. “Not a good idea, Rin,” she explained. “Jimin already has a dating scandal on her hands now, so if some of our sunbaes come over, that’ll look even worse.”

“Fair enough,” the other lead vocalist shrugged, typing out a reply to Baekhyun. 

Seohyeon looked at each of the girls in front of her, observing how they all looked utterly exhausted and worried to the extreme. The maknae cursed Jimin in her head; why did she always have to ruin everything?

Uh-oh, it isn't looking good for POLARIS right now, huh? Poor Jimin-ah. Don't worry, Eunjung and the others aren't really too angry with her, it's just heat of the moment, just like it would be in real life. It will all be resolved before long... One way or another...

ALSO I'M SO SORRY THAT I MISSED MY UPDATE ON THURSDAY! It's been hectic what with my new job and everything and I honestly haven't had the time to post, let alone write, so it turns out that I don't have that many back-up chapters left after all. You guys might need to do some waiting if you want to know more about the girls when I've run out of pre-written chapters xD Sorry! Love you guys! How have you all been doing? Well? I hope so! See you next week :)