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The rest of the day went by painstakingly slow for Suyun who was asked by every staff member if it were true if she and Kangnam were dating. By the 300^th time Suyun was getting annoyed and found herself getting snippy at her friends. When Ara tried to show Suyun a funny video on their way back to the dorm Suyun snapped.

“NO ARA! I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE VIDEO!” Suyun yelled and everyone in the car grew awkwardly silent. She felt terrible for yelling at the maknae but she was too frustrated to apologise.

“Suyun, phone.” Their manager handed back the phone and Suyun had to explain again to the PR team that she wasn’t Kangnam. Apparently more pictures of the two had popped up online showing the two wearing identical hats at different events; people claimed that it was couple items and that they had seen the two wearing it everywhere.  She explained again that it was just a coincidence and that they weren’t dating, they weren’t even that good of friends. The PR team said that they were going to have to report back the blog writers who were making these accusations.

The car came to a stop in the parking area of the apartment building and Suyun angrily stormed out of the van and into the building. All of the girls avoided Suyun as they stood in the elevator, the anger was radiating off of her. Once inside the safety of their dorm their manager went on his phone and was talking to other people in the company higher up than him. Suyun went into the bedroom, threw her bag on the bed and grabbed her phone. Gayun and Juhee watched from the doorway as Suyun opened the closet and climbed in, slamming the doors behind her.

“She only does that when she is really upset.” Gayun muttered to Juhee who just nodded her head.

“We should leave her alone.” Juhee and Gayun placed their bags inside the room and quickly left to give Suyun some space. It was very rare for Suyun to become overwhelmed. She was usually calm and collected but everything seemed to be piling up all at once and Suyun needed the safety of the closet. It was something she started doing as a trainee to hide from their manager when she would eat snacks or make long distance calls to her parents back in America. But every once in a while, she would go in there just to relax and calm herself down from whatever had upset her. Suyun saw that she had a few unanswered calls and texts from Leo.

From: Taekwoon~oppa~

Sorry I fell asleep. I’ll call you soon

From: Taekwoon~oppa~

Pick up

From: Taekwoon~oppa~

Just forgot that you’re busy. Sorry.

From: Taekwoon~oppa~

Saw the news. Call me as soon as possible.

She thought about calling him, but then she grew nervous. Usually she didn’t have anyone to vent to even her closest friend Bomi who couldn’t understand her struggles about the language barrier or home sickness. People could complain that Bomi is forced to rarely see her parents just like many other idols, but then they would get reminded that she can see them on holidays, they could come to her events and even her fan signings. Suyun’s parents couldn't afford to travel all the way to Korea to see their daughter. The last time she saw her parents face to face was over a year ago at a JYP family concert held in LA. She got to talk to them for ten minutes before being forced to go out and talk to her fans. Her love for her fans was true and pure but Suyun wanted to talk to her parents at that moment, but they wouldn’t understand that. In the end Suyun dialled Leo’s number and it rang a few times before Leo picked up.  

“Hey.” Leo’s soft voice said into the phone. Something came over Suyun when she heard Leo’s voice. All the anger that had been building up inside of her started boiling over and came out as tears. She started sobbing into the phone, covering her face in shame as if Leo could see her. “Suyun? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” Leo was panicked. He was in the dance studio with the rest of the guys, taking a break from practicing their new song that they were working on. The guys saw the shocked look on his face and watched as Leo left the room quickly and headed to one of the vocal practicing rooms that were sound proof.He didn't want the rest of VIXX to be listening in on their conversation.

“I’m so frustrated…” Suyun said trying to force herself to calm down from crying so much. Her breaths were shallow and she angrily rubbing her eyes, trying to get rid of the tears.

“Whats wrong?” Leo sat down in front of the keyboard that he spent a lot of his time recording and writing songs at. He had written his first song on this keyboard and it was finally getting put on their upcoming special album.

“Everyone keeps asking me about Kangnam…” Suyun took a deep breath, wiping her tears on her sweater that was hanging in front of her face.

“I heard.” Was all Leo said, he didn’t really know what do to in a situation like this. “If the paparazzi were there a few minutes earlier they would have seen us together.”

“I know! I’m caught up in a scandal with someone I’m not even dating. It’s just so frustrating.” Suyun and Leo talked for fifteen minutes before s came looking for him, wanting to continue their lessons. Suyun had calmed down by this point and was now just basking in the darkness of the closet. She could hear Gayun and Juhee sneaking in and out of the room, trying to be as quiet as possible to give Suyun some time alone. Talking to Leo really helped. Although they didn’t have a deep and meaningful conversation, it was just relaxing to hear his voice and to know that he supported her through all of this.

“When is your next day off?” Leo asked as he heard a knock on the door. N popped his head into the room and saw that Leo was on the phone. He held up his finger, indicating that he would be there in a minute and to give him some time. N nodded his head and mouthed the words, ‘quickly’ and Leo just shooed him away.

“Not for another month…but this coming Sunday I have a half day off. I only have one outdoor performance and fan meeting which we should finish around three in the afternoon.” Suyun was thinking about her schedule and all of the things she had coming up. She wondered what it was like to date someone within the same company; it must be easier to see them all of the time. Suyun made a mental note to talk to Nichkhun to figure out how he managed to make his relationship with Tiffany work for so long.

“How about you come over Sunday and hang out with me and the guys. You can have dinner with us and then we can go bowling. Ravi was boasting to everyone about how much fun you are and now everyone wants to hang out with you.” Leo was stuttering and rambling as he talked. He didn’t know why he was inviting Suyun to hang out with him and his friends. They wanted to meet her and maybe having fun with a large group of people would help bring her stress down.

“Oh, I would like that.” Suyun said, feeling a little anxious at the thought of meeting all of the guys at once. She had met N and Hyuk very briefly and Ravi was talking to other people more than Suyun so she wondered what meeting all of them would be like. “Is Hongbin going to be there?”

“Why?” Leo’s voice was light and chirpy at her question, Suyun knew he was smiling.

“He’s handsome.” Suyun shyly said into the phone in a hushed tone.

“Shut up.” Leo jokingly said and the two of them had a quick laugh before Leo had to leave. Suyun sadly said good bye to him and they hung up. A few minutes later Suyun dragged herself out of the closet and went into Ara and Hanbi’s room. When Ara looked up from her iPad and saw Suyun coming towards her, she thought she was going to get yelled at again. Instead the older girl crawled into bed with Ara and wrapped her arms around the maknae, burying her face into her freshly washed hair.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you, I didn’t mean it.” Suyun whispered into her ear and Ara just pat Suyun’s back in a comforting way.

“I understand unnie; it’s alright.” Ara said, expecting her unnie to get up and walk away but instead Suyun stayed in her place. Everyone knew that Suyun was feeling stressed because of the dating rumour but they also knew that the eldest member of Love-E was kind to a fault and looked out for her little sisters. Even though bad things kept happening to her, she only apologised for being sad. Ara wrapped herself around Suyun like a koala and threatened to cling onto her for the rest of the night. The two girls wrestled and were in the middle of an intense tickle fight when Hanbi had to come and break them apart for being too loud.