After explaining her terminated pregnancy and her relationship with Hyuk, Jaemi was sent straight to the drama filming. She couldn’t stop crying the whole way there, mostly because her manager wouldn’t stop reprimanding her.

                Once her manager dropped her off, she headed directly to the bathroom to wash her face. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and it took all of her remaining strength to not break the mirror. She felt so tired and light headed; after being called a cheater, gold-digger, and e, the last thing she wanted to do was put on a happy face for everybody else.

                When it appeared that the redness and swelling in her face had gone down enough, Jaemi left the bathroom and went into her dressing room.

                “Oh, Jaemi! You’re here!” Miyoung greeted her happily. Jaemi sat down in the chair and kept her head down. Hongbin glanced at her from the side, suspicious of her behavior.

                Miyoung tilted Jaemi’s head up so she could start doing her makeup. When she saw Jaemi’s red eyes and blotchy face, she exclaimed, “Have you been crying? What happened? Are you ok?”

                Hearing her makeup artist’s concerns about Jaemi, Hongbin quickly turned and looked at Jaemi. His first instinct was to rush over to her and hold her in his arms and let her cry, but he bitterly remembered that comforting her was Hyuk’s job.

                “What’s wrong? Did you and Hyuk fight?” Miyoung asked. Hongbin listened intently from the next chair over.

                “No, it’s nothing. I don’t want to talk about it,” Jaemi stated. She noticed that everybody in the room was trying not to stare at her. She felt the tears coming up again, and she quickly excused herself. Miyoung sighed and let her be alone.

                Without thinking, Hongbin followed her out. Yeona rolled her eyes; what else would she expect from him?

                Hongbin saw Jaemi sit down on a bench outside and cry into her hands. He instinctively sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulder.

                “Hongbin, don’t,” she said as she buried her face in his shoulder. He put his other arm around her and pulled her closer.

                “What’s wrong, Jaemi?” he whispered to her. It was really annoying how Hongbin was always there when she needed somebody. It made her feel bad about making him think that she needed him, but this time, she did need him specifically. Outside of Hyuk, nobody would understand better than Hongbin.

                “Somebody found the video,” she said tearfully. She didn’t dare tell him about anything more than that. It took him a few seconds to realize what video she was talking about, but once he did, his jaw dropped; he almost couldn’t believe that this would happen to her. He frowned and tried to think of what to say to her. Hyuk was the one who talked to Jaemi about this stuff the most.

                “Are you ok?” he decided to ask her. It was totally dumb; he knew she obviously wasn’t ok because she was sobbing into his shirt, but he didn’t know what else would have been appropriate to ask.

                He couldn’t stop thinking about the letter from the jackass. When VIXX was just getting well known after finishing Hyde, he got a letter from Sehun, asking for money. He still remembered the exact words in the letter. “You took my girl from me, so isn’t it only fair that you pay me back?” At the time, he thought it was just Sehun trying to annoy him, but now he couldn’t help but think that if Sehun was brazen enough to ask him for money, would he be brazen enough to sell the video to a reporter?

                She couldn’t stop thinking about everything she had to tell those strangers in that cold room. She hadn’t even told Hyuk half of the things she told them. It didn’t feel right, to keep it from Hyuk, but she was afraid of losing Hyuk if he knew everything. She wanted to tell him, but it was so much easier pretending that none of it ever happened. It wasn’t like she had to stop pretending; the representatives obviously weren’t going to tell anybody. In fact, they said they were going to watch out for articles about anything she told them and they would stop it from being published, so really, it was their problem now.

                Jaemi let out a long breath and almost smiled. Hongbin felt disappointed when she lifted her head from his shoulder, but he was relieved to see her half smile. It was then that he noticed her swollen eyes and blotchy face. He wondered how often Hyuk saw her cry like this, and he wondered if she ever cried like this because of Hyuk.

                Hongbin was about to say something, when Yeona came to tell Hongbin to go finish getting his hair done. He warily glanced at Jaemi, asking her if she would be ok without speaking. She nodded and smiled a little bigger, so he left. As they walked back to the dressing room, Yeona couldn’t help but notice his bright demeanor.

                “Are you really that happy just because she let you sit next to her?” Yeona asked bitingly. She couldn’t help herself. She was seething with jealousy.

                Hongbin blushed at her words, oblivious to her tone. “Ah, no…it’s not that—it’s—you wouldn’t understand, noona.”

                “Yeah, I really don’t understand why you keep going back to her when she’s going to hurt you every single time,” she said with more hostility. Hongbin furrowed his brows; he didn’t think what Yeona said was true and he was honestly annoyed that she was trying to ruin his moment.

                Yeona barely stopped herself from slapping sense into him. She knew she’d never get through to him, so she decided to go to the source of the problem. While Hongbin got his hair done, she went to go talk to Jaemi. She found Jaemi still sitting on the bench, playing with her necklace.

                “Hey, you,” Yeona called out. Jaemi looked up. The light hit her perfectly and the wind blew her hair back beautifully. It was unbelievably unfair how pretty she was.

                “Me?” Jaemi asked. She was extremely confused about the situation. She had no idea why Hongbin’s makeup artist would be talking to her.

                “Yeah, you. Nobody else is messing with Hongbin’s heart,” she spoke boldly. She continued on before Jaemi could have a chance to rebut. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but you need to stop leading him on and then pushing him away. It’s hurting him. Badly. I bet you haven’t ever thought about how he feels, you’re too busy thinking about yourself. Hongbin is blindly in love with you and every time you look in his direction, he thinks you’re flirting with him. If you care about him at all, or if you have any decency, you’ll make up your mind about him. Either give him another chance or don’t. There’s not going to be an in between. Ok? ”

                Jaemi took in every one of Yeona’s words carefully. At first, she was so shocked and offended that she wasn’t going to take any of her words seriously, but the more she heard, the guiltier she felt. Yeona was absolutely right. It wasn’t fair of her to treat Hongbin so badly when he treated her so well. Jaemi clutched her necklace tighter in her fist. The choice was hardly a choice; Hyuk was the only one for her. She timidly apologized to Yeona and quickly left to finally get her hair and makeup done.

                Hongbin was surprised to see her come back sadder than how he left her. He asked her what was wrong, to which she replied,

                “Hongbin, I know you want us to date again, but I have no intention of being more than friends with you, and if being just friends isn’t an option, then I guess we’ll have to go back to being strangers. I’m sorry Hongbin, but I don’t think there’s an in between.”

                Hurt spread across his face. Of course he was expecting it, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. He was mostly confused about why she would say that to him out of nowhere. Yeona entered the room again and he noticed her eyeing Jaemi. He guessed what happened and he angrily pulled Yeona back out into the hallway without letting his hair stylist finish putting waves in his hair.  

                “Noona, did you say something to Jaemi?” he questioned.

                “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I did,” Yeona replied easily. “I told her to stop being so self-centered and be upfront with you.”

                “What?” he asked, both confused and annoyed. “Why would you tell her that?”

                “Because if I didn’t, she would keep messing with you and you would keep falling for it,” she explained.

                Hongbin scoffed and rolled his eyes. “No offense, noona, but you don’t know anything about me. Or Jaemi. She would never intentionally hurt me.”

                “Yes, I’m sure she didn’t think you’d be hurt if she kissed you and then ignored you,” Yeona replied sarcastically. “And you know how I know that? Because you told me. You tell me everything about her, so yeah. I do know her and she honestly sounds like a—“
                “Stop!” Hongbin yelled. “Don’t say it! Jaemi is not like that. She’s—she’s been through a lot—we’ve been through a lot. You wouldn’t understand and it’s none of your business anyway.”

                Yeona bit her lip and tried not to cry. She almost hated Hongbin in that moment, and she really hated Jaemi. Hongbin was going to pick Jaemi over her, and over any other girl, every time and Jaemi was never going to pick him. Yeona angrily walked away and Hongbin rolled his eyes. He didn’t get why Yeona was so critical of Jaemi.

                When Jaemi got home, she acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, so Hyuk assumed that she didn’t want to talk about what happened earlier.

                “Hey Jaemi, did you see the news article about us?” he asked light-heartedly. Jaemi started panicking internally, but she managed to stay composed and she calmly asked,

                “What article?”

                Hyuk pulled out his laptop and went to the bookmarked article. Jaemi subtly sighed in relief when she read the headline.

                “Model Jo Jaemi caught on a date with her boyfriend.”

                She continued reading and couldn’t help but smile widely by the end. The article only said good things about how cute they looked together and what not. Hyuk smiled seeing her happier and he couldn’t help himself from pinching her cheek.

                “Wow, reporters really love us. Actually, I think they like me a little bit better. Did you see the part where they said I was of ‘model-like stature?’ I think I need to start dressing better when we go out so reporters can get better pictures of me,” he joked with her. She let out an airy laugh and lightly swatted the back of his head. He never failed to make her feel better. She went to change into more comfortable clothes and wash her makeup off of her face.

                When she came out of the bathroom, Hyuk was about to suggest going out again (definitely not to have his picture taken by paparazzi) but he sensed that she was feeling down. He wondered what really happened when her manager called her in to talk, but he didn’t want to make her talk about it since she obviously didn’t want to.

                He put one of Jaemi’s favorite movies into the DVD player and patted the space on the couch next to him. Jaemi wanted to turn into a pile of mush because of him. She happily curled up next to him and genuinely felt like everything was going to work out for the best.