CHAPTER EIGHT: Jessica's Recovery

At the emergency room, Jessica had her stomach pumped. The nurse inserted a tube through to her stomach. It was slightly painful and made her want to retch. Jessica hoped they'd be careful not to damage . The nurse squirted a bit of cold saline into the stomach before drawing the contents that hadn't been digested yet out. Jessica never thought she'd get her stomach pumped. She didn't like parties, and the last time she went to Vegas was for a photoshoot with the group. Strictly business.

After the nurse pulled the tube out of her- carefully and slowly, please- a doctor gave her a thimble full of charcoal slush, and she promptly threw up brown deluge into the paper bag provided. They let her wash out before giving her a few pills. Antidote for the poison they forced her to take.

"We'll have you here for the night. For observation," the doctor said. And she was transferred to a private ward.

"Is she okay now?" Myungmin asked, hovering around her like an anxious bat.

"You'll be queasy the next few days. Eat lightly," the doctor said. "I'll prescribe some medicine. Take two pills thrice daily, after eating."

"I'll be good to perform again next week, right?" Jessica asked.

"...Yes. Take it easy, though."

Right.

The moment the doctor left, Jessica turned to Myungmin. "Do they know who gave that coffee? What's the company going to do about this?"

Myungmin hesitated, his eyebrows arched somewhere between anger and inefficacy. He had never encountered a situation like this before. He always took the necessary precautions that was expected of a manager, but food was something he had become complacent with. Tiffany got her unagi bentos all the time. Fans sent snack trucks to shoots. Gift boxes of chocolates. All the time. Something like a simple paper cup of Paris Bagutte coffee... he had sniffed it once before passing it to her. Biggest mistake of the century. He should probably lose his job over this, but he hoped he wouldn't. Jessica wasn't the hardest celebrity to manage, even though her personality made the job... interesting. She had gone through the SM system, after all.

"Oppa?"

"Uh, a bunch of people saw the ambulance at KBS so the company released a brief statement about a bad anti-fan present, but that you're fine so not to worry. You know, the usual diffusing."

"As expected."

"And the police are investigating right now," Myungmin said. "A couple of officers are waiting outside. They have questions for the both of us. Do you feel up to answering them?"

"Sure." She wanted to know which delusional, insane put her through this.

Myungmin walked over to the entrance and opened the door. He poked his head out. When he returned, two uniformed policemen followed him. Taeyeon and her manager, Keunsuk, trailed behind. Why was Taeyeon here? Was she the one who gave the coffee? It didn't really compute for Jessica. Taeyeon wasn't an evil witch.

The officers introduced themselves, Oh and Park. They asked her for a timeline of events and if there was anyone who she thought might want to harm her. Well. anti-Jessica fans, anti-Girls' Generation fans and idol boy band fans. And maybe Taeyeon when they broke up. But that was some time ago, and like Jessica said, for all of Taeyeon's flaws she wasn't capable of being underhanded. Jessica omitted the last person in her answer. The officers nodded with faux sympathy. Jessica could see it in their eyes that idol culture was one big cuckoo fest.

"You might want to include female idol fans in that list," officer Oh said. He pulled out a ziplock bag with a card in it, placed it on the bed, then motioned for Park to pass her a tablet. She swiped through the photographs of the card. Oh asked, "Recognize the handwriting at the postscript?"

"No," Jessica said. Taeyeon looked miserable. Taeyeon guilty was simply a blank face scrunched ever so slightly with worry.

"We found three sets of fingerprints on the card," Oh said, "so that's a narrow list of suspects. Especially if two of them are from Keunsuk-ssi and Taeyeon-ssi here. They've alibi-ed out."

Good to know.

"I have more officers at the broadcast station conducting interviews," Oh said. "I believe we'll catch the perp soon. We'll be going now. Thanks for your time."

When the four SM employees were left alone in the ward, Keunsuk broke the silence first. "Let's get the obvious things out of the way first. No more accepting edible fan gifts. Security will be stepped up at KBS, SBS and MBC, and when we move outside in the open."

"And, you two, don't go outside by yourselves. You go everywhere with a manager or a bodyguard," Myungmin said.

Taeyeon agreed vigorously. Jessica was less enthusiastic. 

"If one person feels strongly enough about you two to pull this sort of crap," Keunsuk said, "then who's to say there aren't more bat degenerates out there? And it also means that a significant number of people bear ill will towards the two of you, even if they won't lash out physically."

"Isn't that the whole basis of this simultaneous promotion strategy?" Jessica said. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah, well, the company didn't expect it to go this far."

"They can foresee and nip so many things in the bud, but not when it comes to making money." Like how they knew B&E was going to be such a bad idea if she wasn't going to give them a cut.

Keunsuk cleared his throat. "In any case, Taeyeon made such an uncharacteristcally decisive move that I think this healthy diet I have her on is working. No more tonkatsu, soondae or gopchang. Like I always say, you are what you eat."

"What? No! It's just common sense, oppa."

"You did well so quickly this time though," Keunsuk said. Now Jessica was curious what SM's A-star student had done this time.

"So," Taeyeon said, shooting her manager a glare. "I called President Kim just now. Like, unity is a lot more powerful than rivalry, right? It's a much more Soshi sort of concept. The president agreed with me. Said the new direction would give the promotions a last boost or whatever."

"What does that mean?" Jessica asked.

"We'll do a public activity together. Sing a duet. It'll show the public that we're not at each other's throats. Hopefully this will diffuse people like that fan. Is that... How does that sound?"

"Wow, and Kim Young Min agreed, just like that?"

"I tried to be kind of firm about it."

Jessica nodded at Keunsuk, wide-eyed. "You're right. That's some miracle diet."

"Oh, shut up, you. Oppa! Let me eat what I want."

Keunsuk just laughed.

Then Myungmin said, "Isn't it too obvious, though? Jessica hasn't exactly been nice her past few interviews. Especially the Tablo one."

"We don't have to pretend or anything," Taeyeon said. "You're right, it'll be too obvious if we faked it. We just act like how we usually would. It's not like we're normally hostile towards each other. Besides, it's just singing. The backstage interviews will be lame."

"I suppose it's not such a bad idea," Myungmin said. "Jessica, what do you think?"

Jessica shrugged. "It'll get crazy losers off my back. Let's do it."

Most waking hours, she was disoriented and uncomfortable. The medicine was vaguely effective. Her mom fussed over her at home.

On Saturday, Hyoyeon and Seohyun came to visit. On Sunday, Sunny and Tiffany did. They slumped on the sofa in the living room before the TV, eating popcorn and strawberries, watching Taeyeon collect two more trophies. Missing Music Core and Inkigayo blew up the Korean Internet. She didn't monitor the forums, but her friends told her that more people were indignant than celebratory that she had been poisoned by a sasaeng.

Tiffany and Sunny stayed after Inkigayo ended. They watched Game of Thrones until dinner time. Jessica's mother cooked seafood linguine. Then Sunny went of to host FM Date.

"Taeyeon's got something on today?" Jessica asked Tiffany. She had expected Tiffany to go back since Taeyeon would be ending a long weekend at an empty dorm apartment.

"No."

"Then..."

"We had, like, a small fight. I wanted time to cool off."

"Oh yeah?" Tiffany and Taeyeon had their small, inconsequential spats frequently, so Jessica was always interested to know what ticked them off this time, because Tiffany was always the nicest to Taeyeon and Taeyeon rarely lost her temper at anyone. "What was it about this time?"

"You. Like, you saw the message she posted on the group chat, right?"

Taeyeon's post on the Soshi group had been: 'Jessica got poisoned by some coffee one of my fans gave her. She's fine now. One night in observation and back on schedule next week.'

And then Jessica watched her switch off her phone and excuse herself to get some coffee for Myungmin and Keunsuk, who were spending the night in the waiting room outside. 

And then all seven other members were calling Jessica or messaging her to check up on her. She had felt a lot safer after that. It was kind of weird when she fielded another round of calls and texts asking about Taeyeon and her dead cellphone.

Jessica then fell asleep alone. She woke up in the middle of the night to see Taeyeon in a sweater, with the hood up, arms crossed, sitting on the visitor's chair, sleeping. She watched Taeyeon for a while before drifting off again. The next morning, the visitor's chair was empty. The doctor came to discharge her, and Myungmin took her home.

"As you know, she switched off her cell so I couldn't contact her all night, and then when she got home yesterday she just ignored Sunny and I the whole freaking day until Music Core. But she's obviously not OK if she's acting out like this, right? I just wanted to knock some sense into her head."

"You're terrible, Tiff. Just let her be and she'll sort herself out."

"But it'll be so much faster and healthier if she just talked it out with me."

"You didn't read the letter, Tiff. It was crazy. As conceited as it sounds, she's probably genuinely blaming herself for being popular enough to have a sasaeng like that."

"Then she shouldn't act like she doesn't care. She's always giving these performances on stage that never differ. They're always too consistent. It's just too... unfeeling."

"Well, from her perspective, she probably thinks it's even more of a disservice to me if she didn't do as well as she usually does, right?"

"She's always going on about wanting to sing well. Singers show true emotions. Use her sadness to fuel the song or whatever. She doesn't do that."

"You're talking about Kim Taeyeon who is famous for being able to express the emotions of any song perfectly."

"It's too perfect. It's not personal. At least, not to us people who know her. It's like sliding down an uncanny valley every time."

Jessica sighed. "It doesn't sound like you want to figure out what's going on with Taeyeon instead of how you want to know how she really feels about this whole mess. And you're hurt that she still doesn't trust you with that."

"I guess. It's just a bit frustrating."

"You're being kind of ridiculous too, ragging on a kid for doing too well. I'm sure both of you will get over it soon. As usual. And be best of boos," Jessica said. "I'm the patient here and we're talking like Taeyeon is the one who got sick. If we're not going to stop ing about her you can take your Taeny back where you came from."

"Sorry. JeTi for life."

"Whatever."

They went back to watching the Victoria's Secret performances on YouTube.

After the weekend, officer Oh was ready with his report. They went through the CCTV footage at KBS and verified the suspect's fingerprints with the one on the card.

The perpetrator in question was the twenty-year old, Kang Yejin, from Ehwa Women's University. Maybe college stress had pushed her over the edge. She had probably used the image of Taeyeon to tide through the troubles of life and got too immersed. SM pressed charges, taking the matter almost completely out of Jessica's hands. Taeyeon and she just had to follow what SM told them to do. In such situations, Jessica was grateful to have an organized tyrant in control.

Taeyeon and Jessica met at a practice studio at SM on Wednesday. Jessica had fully recovered. For Jessica's slot on Music Bank, they'd sing To My Face together. The song, which featured Krystal on the original track, was a pop song with a medium-tempo beat. It was one of the best songs on her album, but she hadn't promoted it because it required an accompanying singer, which was simply troublesome to coordinate.

"Sorry for being late. Was stuck in traffic," Jessica said.

"No worries," Taeyeon said. "Are you better now?"

"Yes." No thanks for not texting me like at all.

"Great. I'm glad they found who did it. We won't have to worry about her anymore."

"Definitely."

Taeyeon rubbed her hands together, breaking out one of her broadcast smiles. "Let's get down to business, then. How do you want us to approach the song?"

"The essential idea behind the song is, things are bad between two people but they keep beating around the bush and exploding at peripheral problems. So one of them is like, screw it, just say it to my face. Let's get this over and done with. Who cares if this relationship survives."

"Got it. Anything specific?"

"Whatever relates to you the most at the moment. Like, the public that makes all these assumptions about us like it's the gospel truth. Then they go crazy about the most inane and chatter among themselves about it. So it's like 'em, if you got something to say, say it to my face. If you can do the I do, I'll let you continue saying crap. So you got to feel that and get it out there. The lyrics aren't explicit so we gotta be extra strong about it. You and Krystal are a lot better at that than me, that's why we needed the feature."

"I can do that."

Jessica hesitated. "So the other day, Tiff and Sunny visited me and we watched you on Inkigayo together."

"Aww, you did monitoring for me? Any feedback?" Another try-hard smile. Shoulders that seemed too relaxed to be actually relaxed.

Jessica pushed onwards. "So, Tiff said that you maybe sing songs too perfectly that the emotions... well, the emotions could be better expressed, I guess? Like, I mean, I kind of noticed that too. Like, you're great at expressing and you've got the best technique out of all of us, obviously. But maybe it's because we know you too well, so we don't feel that you're singing truthfully. I guess. I don't know how else to put it."

Taeyeon pushed her hair out of her face. "I see. Thanks for the feedback. I'll try to correct that."

Which made things awkward immediately.

"It's just feedback. Don't take it personally. You can give me feedback too."

Taeyeon chuckled like she would for a variety show. "I think it's just weird since we haven't exchanged feedback for more than a year."

"Yeah, it feels freaking strange."

They started singing. Taeyeon ran through her verses first, clarifying the melody and the beat, and then they practiced the whole song together. They were cooperating sufficiently well, but things still felt awkward. Jessica hoped it wasn't too obvious. They recorded a video and posted it on the group chat. Only Tiffany and Yuri thought there was something off about their chemistry. Everyone else was good or thought that the presentation could be tweaked.

"Let's go through it a few more times. Maybe it'll be less weird?" Jessica said.

Taeyeon shrugged. "Sure we could do that. Or, maybe, we could just sing whatever? Do covers of random songs for fun."

"Ugh. This feels like an ice breaker."

"But it's a good idea." Taeyeon liked her kid leader activities. They actually worked fine when she was stubborn about conducting them, like the Five-Minute Talk and Right Now It's Girls' Generation. Everyone else would fall in line and participate to placate the oldest member, and get surprised when things turned out well.

"Yes, fine. Have a name for this one?"

"Sing Random Songs."

"Good lord."

They sang DJ DOC, Cho Yong Pil, Kim Gunmo, Jessie J, Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift.

Then they recorded another video of To My Face and posted it on the group. There were no complaints this time. Taeyeon gave Jessica a high-five. "Awwright! is going dowwn."

Jessica grinned. Taeyeon was definitely the nicest after singing well. She said, "you better perform like this on Friday."

"I'll do my best," Taeyeon said.

"Don't... don't do it out of guilt or anything, okay? Do it because you care about the song."

"Right, of course."

"Seriously. Maybe you think what happened was your fault, but this time it really isn't. That Kang what's-her-name is insane."

Taeyeon's real smile dropped into a fake one. "Don't worry about me. I guess we're done here? Oppa can give you a ride home if you don't want to bother Myungmin-oppa."

The offer was tempting, but Jessica had just recovered and she didn't really want to get bogged down by Taeyeon's neuroticism for an entire car ride. Maybe another time.

A/N: Late update~ Like I said in my other story, I was off backpacking for two weeks. Updating will be back to normal now:) Aish... canon fics:/ Thanks for the comments/upvotes/subs last chapter! Lol at how some people were happy about the sasaeng's intervention:D How was this one?