The next day, Jaemi was surprised to see her twitter feed and Instagram flooded with VIXX fans cursing and threatening her. She tried not to read any of them, but the most profane and hateful comments ended up catching her attention anyway.

                “Who is this ugly to even breathe the same air as VIXX oppas? Stay away from our oppas!”

                “You obviously started all these rumors yourself so you can get attention. Pathetic attention .”

                “If you think for a second that you can seduce VIXX oppas with your ugly plastic face then you have another thing coming. You’re so ugly and you should go die. VIXX oppas would never even look at an ugly girl like you.”

                Had the comments not been so hurtful, Jaemi might’ve just laughed and deleted them. When she was younger, if somebody called her ugly, she’d be upset but she’d get over it. But now, her whole career depended on her face. If she didn’t have her face, she didn’t have anything; she wasn’t smart like Hyuk, she didn’t have the personality to make it as an idol, she really wouldn’t be able to do anything else. Reading the comments also made her terrified about what would happen if they ever found out that she dated Hongbin. Her old self would’ve sneered at the naïve fans who didn’t know the truth, but now she felt legitimately threatened by the delusional girls. If they were already sending her death threats when she clearly showed that she was not dating one of their precious oppas, she didn’t want to find out what they’d really do if they knew she and Hongbin were super in love at one point.

                Tension between Jaemi and Hongbin seemed to significantly increase after the press conference. But in reality, Jaemi just wanted to keep to herself after the press conference. She felt bad for ruining the press conference with her awkward reactions.

                Hongbin couldn’t help but feel like it was his fault that she was so timid around everyone now. He wanted to apologize for getting mad at her, but he could never find a good time to do it and as time passed, it became increasingly difficult for him to bring it up. Yeona was annoyed by how Hongbin wouldn’t stop talking about Jaemi. Whenever she did his makeup, all he’d talk about was how she was when they were dating. It hurt to listen to it, more than anything. She couldn’t help but hate Jaemi. Jaemi didn’t have to do anything to make Hongbin like her, and she didn’t even realize how much Hongbin loved her. She didn’t care at all and Yeona hated her for that.

                Miyoung was the only person whom Jaemi confided in about the hateful comments. She felt heartbroken when Jaemi tried to play it off by saying she was used to it. Miyoung was well-liked by everybody her entire life, so she had no idea what to say to Jaemi, which made her feel even worse. All she could do was tell Jaemi that the comments were untrue and try to keep her from reading them as much as possible.

                The comments got better and worse once the drama started airing. The people who already didn’t like her, liked her even less because of the character she played, but the people who didn’t really have any opinion of her liked her acting and, of course, her face. Surprisingly, there was a lot of support for her character and Hongbin’s character to be an official couple. In fact, the writers had to write in a “kiss” scene for the two of them. Considering all the rumors about them, Hongbin’s agency didn’t think it’d be a good idea for him and Jaemi to actually kiss, so the director said they would film up to when theyre about to kiss and then cut to the two of them hugging afterwards, which was surely going to be just as awkward as a kiss.

                “Hey, Jaemi. Did you hear about the ratings of last night’s episode? They were through the roof. We’re all going out to dinner to celebrate. Do you wanna join us?” Soeun invited Jaemi.

                Jaemi thought about going with them. It sounded like fun, but she remembered that she hadn’t gotten paid yet and she was still broke. “Um, maybe next time. I don’t feel well today,” she lied.

                “Is everything ok? You’ve seemed pretty sick lately,” Soeun said concernedly.

                “Yeah, it’s probably just a cold… I’ll be fine. Thanks for worrying, eonnie,” Jaemi replied with a faint smile.

                “Ok, remember to dress warmly, ok? It’s getting cold now,” Soeun added before leaving.

                Hongbin happened to overhear Jaemi’s conversation. He was slightly disappointed that she wasn’t going to get dinner with them, but he was mostly worried about her being sick. Yeona wanted to look away from him looking at Jaemi with that stupid lovesick expression on his handsome face, but unfortunately, she had to finish his makeup.

                “Yeona noona, do you think Jaemi’s really sick? She’s been looking really pale the last few days, hasn’t she? Do you think something is really wrong?”

                Yeona subtly rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. She probably looks so pale because she wears a foundation that’s four shades too light for her skin tone.”

                “Noona, are you ok? You sound tired too. Oh my god, is there a virus going around?” Hongbin asked frantically. Yeona smiled at him. He was so kind, unlike the girl. What did he see in her?

                “I’m fine, Hongbin. I’m sure there isn’t a virus going around,” Yeona assured him.

                “Oh, that’s a relief. But Jaemi hasn’t been as energetic as she used to be. I think she really is sick, or maybe something happened,” he thought out loud. There was that nagging feeling in his stomach again that maybe she was sad because she broke up with Hyuk.

                Honestly, things weren’t much better on Hyuk’s end. It was nearly impossible for him to focus on anything. He constantly found himself waiting for Jaemi to call him or message him, and when she messaged him, he spent a lot of time thinking about how to best reply to her.

                He didn’t want to admit it, but he felt really pressured to be a good boyfriend. When they were just friends, he never had to worry about what to say to her, but now, he felt like he always had to say something sweet or something funny to make her smile. She was actually his dream girl and he sometimes still couldn’t believe that she really liked him. He was always afraid that she’d wake up one day and realize how subpar he was and decide that she didn’t love him anymore.

                He never felt threatened by her good looking friends like Joohyuk or anybody, but he was always worried because she was way out of his league. She was like an entire galaxy and he was a speck of dust. Even Aidan didn’t believe that she was his girlfriend at first. He was glad that they spent all of their high school years building up their friendship, because besides their extremely strong friendship, Hyuk didn’t know what else would be keeping them together all these years. He knew she was getting tired of their long distance relationship, and it made him all the more scared that one day she would just tell him that she was done.

                “Um, Jaemi, the director, um, wanted to know, if, uh, we needed to… um, practice or anything… for the…you know,” Hongbin mumbled to Jaemi as Miyoung braided Jaemi’s hair.

                “I think we’ve had enough practice,” Jaemi said with a straight face. She looked at Hongbin through the mirror and saw that he looked like a lost puppy. She smiled to herself; she forgot how cute he could be when he was flustered. “I was joking, Hongbin, because… well… you know,” she added. Yeona found herself rolling her eyes at Jaemi. Miyoung noticed Yeona giving Jaemi dirty looks, but she decided to let it go for now.

                “Ah, of course,” Hongbin laughed while he nervously scratched the back of his head. “I’ll just tell the director that we um… don’t need… practice...” Jaemi smiled and nodded.

                Hongbin felt his heart in his throat as he walked away. Jaemi was his first and only kiss so far, but he was so nervous. He didn’t know what to do. He wished that this was a real kiss, but at the same time, he didn’t want to kiss her just because somebody else told him to. He wanted to make her start falling for him again. If they were going to kiss, it was going to a kiss that reminded the both of them of all the other kisses they’ve shared.

                Jaemi finally stepped onto the set. The other VIXX members came yesterday to guest star in this episode. They were supposed to flirt with Jaemi (which was indescribably awkward) and convince her to go to a club with them even though her character was underage. And when she gets denied access to the club, Jisung spends the night on a date with her. Jaemi was wearing a short, tight, blue dress that made Hongbin’s jaw drop. He never knew she could look so y. She was always just pretty and lovely to him, sometimes cute, but she was never y. The years were very good to her.

                “Hongbin-ssi. If you’ll wipe your drool and close your mouth, we’ll get started. The assistant director joked with him. He turned a bright pink color and awkwardly cleared his throat and fanned himself.

                Luckily, the director started the scene right away. The both of them automatically became very nervous about this. Hongbin didn’t want to mess it up, but he knew if he did, they’d have to do multiple takes. He tried to banish those thoughts from his mind and concentrate on saying his lines properly.

                “Thank you for hanging out with me tonight, oppa. I had fun,” Nayoung said to Jisung as they walked down the street. Hongbin kept his hands in his pocket, but for some reason, they both felt like it would’ve only been natural to be holding hands with each other.

                “Tch, whatever. You better enjoy this because it’s never happening again,” Jisung replied.

                Nayoung stopped walking and said, “Really? So, are you saying that next time this happens, it will be considered a date?”

                “I told you, I don’t date kids,” Jisung answered harshly, leaning a bit closer to her. Hongbin’s heart wouldn’t calm down.

                “Are you sure about that, oppa? Because I think you like me. I’m right, aren’t I oppa?” Nayoung argued. Hongbin leaned in a little more. Jaemi suddenly really felt like she was back in high school, going through all the confusion of how she felt about Hongbin.

                Hongbin leaned in to nearly close the space between their lips, as scripted. With his lips hovering less than a centimeter over hers, he couldn’t stop himself from pressing his lips onto the corner of her lips. He wanted to fully kiss her, but he knew he wasn’t supposed to. He missed her so much. He missed being her boyfriend, being her friend, just having her in his life. He missed her.  He hoped that she missed him half as much as he missed her, but he knew that odds were that she didn’t.

                Hongbin somewhat reluctantly pulled his head back and looked at her in the eyes. It must’ve looked extremely romantic from the camera’s perspective.

                “You do like me,” Jaemi said quietly with a faint smile and a glimmer in her eyes. Hongbin’s heart was beating wildly with hope. He didn’t care how good at acting and lying she was; there was no way she could’ve faked the way she looked at him like that. Jaemi hated herself for feeling confused for even a moment, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t know how long it had been since somebody dared to be close with her, but it felt good to have somebody physically here and not half way around the world.