Hyuk and Jaemi woke up and had breakfast together. It was the first meal they had together in months. It was a bit of a mess with Hyuk being his usual self, but it was also full of laughter and smiles for the both of them.

                “So, what should we do today?” Hyuk asked, his mouth still full of eggs. Jaemi shook her head disapprovingly and tried to hold back her smile.

                “Um, I don’t know. I don’t have to go until 4… I think. Is there something you want to do?” she answered.

                “I feel like we should visit your parents, unless they’re still on vacation? When do they get back? I forgot.”

                “They get back Sunday night,” she replied with a shy smile. She loved that he cared a lot about her parents. It made him even better husband-material.

                Hyuk took another bite of the food that Jaemi made. He loved everything that she made, along with everything else about her. He couldn’t imagine spending the rest of his life with anybody but her.

                “Oh, speaking of my parents, have you thought about what we should get them for Christmas? I know my dad needs a new briefcase and my mom said she wanted more comfortable work shoes,” Jaemi said.

                “So, what I’m hearing is that you haven’t gotten me a Christmas present yet and you want to go shopping?” Hyuk half-joked with her.

                Jaemi scoffed and argued, “Well it’s not like you got me a gift yet either.”

                “Yeah I did!” Hyuk refuted. “It’s just such a big secret that it’s still a secret to me.”

                It took a few seconds before Jaemi understood what Hyuk meant. She rolled her eyes and scoffed at him in response and Hyuk giggled at her response. They finished breakfast together and prepared to go to Hongdae.

                Jaemi put on her newest Adidas sneakers to compliment her outfit and paced around her living room while Hyuk changed out of his pajamas. Feeling impatient, Jaemi went into the bedroom to see what was taking him so long and found him exploring her vast closet. She watched him in amusement for a few moments; he was so cute. Hyuk noticed Jaemi watching him a few seconds after she appeared, but he continued to pretend to not notice. He liked it when she stared at him because it was usually the other way around. He started trying to pose like a model with her clothes and she realized that he knew she was there.

                She held back her smile and said, “Ya, Han Sanghyuk, are you going to make me wait for you all day?”

                He dramatically flipped his hair and replied, “Royalty waits for nobody.”

                Jaemi furrowed her brow and thought about what he said. “Wait, that doesn’t even make se—“

                “Ah, well, it’s time to go,” he cut her off. He randomly grabbed one of his jackets off of the hangers and walked out of the closet. He swung his arm around her shoulders and led her towards the parking garage where her expensive convertible was parked. Knowing that Hyuk really liked her car, she handed him the keys and let him drive to Hongdae.

                When they arrived, they went into the first shoe store they saw. The workers greeted the both of them and watched them as they looked at all of the shoes on display. Jaemi heard them quietly ask each other if she was a celebrity. Since she started appearing in the drama, she had become more recognized by people whenever she went out and she had gotten used to the stares and whispers.

                “Ah! Ah! She’s in that one drama with that VIXX guy!” one of the workers whispered to the other workers. Hyuk smiled proudly to himself. Jaemi had gone quite far in a few years and now it was paying off.

                “Oh yeah! You’re right!” the other worker agreed. “She’s dating the VIXX guy right? Hongbin, right? Of course good looking people will only date other good looking people.” Hyuk scowled. He quickly moved to Jaemi’s side and put his arm around her waist.

                “That’s nice, do you think your mom would like it?” he asked. The workers gasped, realizing that Hyuk was her boyfriend.

                “Hm, maybe… it’s kind of pricey though…” Jaemi commented.

                “That’s ok! My dad gave me a platinum credit card. If there’s anything you want, then just get it,” Hyuk said proudly. Jaemi smiled gratefully at Hyuk and gave him a quick kiss on the lips because what she heard was, “You’re worth anything and everything to me.”

                However, what the workers heard was, “You’re only with me for my money.” They started whispering to each other again, calling Jaemi a cheater and a gold digger. Hyuk could tell that Jaemi heard their comments by the way she was staring dismally at the shoe in her hand. His blood boiled; did these people not have any shame?

                “Excuse me,” Hyuk called out to the workers. “But if you’re going to talk badly about your customers, don’t you think you should do it more quietly?” Jaemi dropped the shoe and tried to pull Hyuk out of the shop before he could cause a bigger commotion, but he was determined to put the workers in their place.

                “Do you think she’s a doenjang-nyuh* just because she’s holding something expensive?” he interrogated. The workers were left speechless, but he didn’t give them a chance to reply anyway. “If she’s a doenjang-nyuh, then what are you? Cheese girls? Margarine girls? Balsamic girls? What makes you think you’re better than her?” (*soybean paste girl; I was making a reference to Hyuk's part in Big Byung's song lol)

                “Hyuk, let’s go,” Jaemi said again, tugging his arm harder. Having said all he wanted to, he gladly left the shop with her. Once they distanced themselves from the store, Jaemi stopped and looked at Hyuk. She couldn’t decide whether to be thankful or guilty. She was both a cheater and a gold-digger and she knew that she should tell Hyuk the truth, but she was paralyzed with fear of what he would do if she told him even half of what goes on when he wasn’t around, and sometimes, even when he was around.

                In the end, she decided to keep shut about being broke and going to dinner with Shin and kissing Hongbin. She pecked Hyuk on the lips and said, “I love you, Hyuk Hyuk.”

                Hyuk rolled his eyes and replied, “I guess I kind of love you too.”

                She laughed at his response and he couldn’t help but press his lips onto hers again.

                Jaemi looked up at Hyuk. She felt so lucky to know him. She looked into his warm, brown eyes and said, “Thank you for saying all of that back there. You know… now that I think about it again, it didn’t make total sense ei—“

                “You’re welcome,” he cut her off. She smiled and he continued more seriously, “I’ll always stand up for you and I’ll always stand by you.”

                She felt like melting into a puddle of mush. Hyuk was just too good to be true. She was about to kiss him again when her phone rang. She was surprised to see that it was her actual manager calling because he usually just passed all information about her schedule through Miyoung.

                “Hello?” She answered confusedly.

                “Ya, you brat. Get your to the office right now,” her manager hissed. Her eyes widened and she quickly agreed. She shuddered to think what happened to make him talk to her with that tone.

                “Is something wrong?” Hyuk asked.

                “Um, I don’t really know,” she half lied. “I need to go now, though. Can you drop me off at the SM building?” He nodded and they left Hongdae,

                The drive over to the SM building was uncomfortable quiet. Jaemi stared at the space in front of her and tried to think about why she was being called in angrily by her manager. Hyuk knew that something was definitely wrong, but he didn’t know what to say. Jaemi was as white as a sheet of paper and she looked genuinely scared of what was to come. Hyuk tried to think of something to say, but he couldn’t. All too soon, they arrived in front of the building. Hyuk gave her a few words of encouragement, but she couldn’t even look him in the eye when she said goodbye.

                 When she entered the building, she was immediately ushered into the private meeting room. She saw her manager and several other representatives in the room. Her manager sneered at her as she sat down across from everybody. She never felt smaller in her life, with everybody looking down on her and judging her.

                 “Can you explain what the meaning of this is?” one of the representatives asked harshly. He threw down a packet of papers in front of her. Her hand trembled as she reached for it. Once she read the headline of the news article presented to her, she gasped and stared in shock at everybody.

                 “Jo Jaemi: Model, Actress…e?” the headline read.

                 “Wha—what is this?” she stammered, completely shocked by it. Of all the rumors there could’ve been about her, this was the last one she expected.

                 “I don’t know, you tell us,” her manager remarked condescendingly.

                 She continued reading. The article included pictures of her meeting with Shin and him giving her gifts. There was also a picture of Hongbin standing outside of her apartment complex at night. The tears automatically started falling as she read on about how there was no way for her to be so successful in such a short amount of time, other than sleeping with everybody.

                 She completely lost control of herself when she read the end of the article.

                 “It appears that Jo has had a history of using as a means to get what she wants. Some of her former classmates revealed that she had been the reason for many couples at the school to break up. An anonymous source has also shared what appears to be her tape.”

                 She couldn’t stop herself from looking at the picture at the end of the article. It was a screen cap of that video from her senior year. She threw the papers across the desk and started sobbing hysterically.

                 It was never supposed to resurface. It was supposed to stay hidden forever. She spent every day, every moment, and every second of her life since the incident wishing that it would erase itself from history, and for a while, she was able to believe that it never happened. She buried her face in her hands and started crying.

                 “Ms. Jo, we need to know. Is anything written in this article true?” one of the younger representatives asked her. She violently shook her head and continued crying into her hands.

                 “You brat. Look at your seniors when they talk to you,” her manager scolded.

                 She faced them with her puffy eyes and snotty nose and shouted, “No! None of it is true! It’s all a lie!”

                 The nice representative who asked her about the truthfulness of the article handed her a box of tissues and said, “What about the video? We… took a look at it and… well, Ms. Jo, it definitely looks like you.”

                  Jaemi started crying even harder. She was shaking and choking and she wanted to pass out. Everybody in the room, except for young representative, was indifferent to her breakdown.

                  “Ms. Jo, you will need to tell us everything about the circumstances presented in the article so that we can keep it from being exposed,” the young representative explained. Jaemi tried to even out her breathing, but she couldn’t stop crying. For the next couple of hours, she sobbed and told them everything she remembered from the incident.

                  At the end of it, the representative asked her, “Is there anything else we need to know? Anything else that could damage your image.”

                  Jaemi chewed the inside of her cheek and thought about not telling them the last thing. She wanted to take it to the grave with her, but she was absolutely terrified of what would happen if a nosy reporter found out and revealed it first. She squeezed her eyes shut and calmed herself down enough to say, “Well, you already know I’m sponsored, and I already talked about dating Hongbin, and I mentioned my boyfriend, right? Well… there was… I did something… my boyfriend doesn’t even know, but… um… last summer… he got me pregnant.”