The Hideaway
Tangled
“Turn left here,” I instructed.
We were almost to my house and I couldn’t wait. This was the most awkward car ride in the history of car rides. Seriously, it almost hurt.
Neither of us were talking and if it weren’t for me telling her how to get to my house the ride would have been completely silent I’m sure.
What the hell was I supposed to talk to her about anyway? The subway again?
That was weird enough the first time.
Ugh… I don’t know and I really don’t care. I just wanted to go home and sleep. This has definitely been enough idol drama to last me a lifetime. Sooyoung could take Hyoyeon to the next concert… alone.
“Make a right at the next light.” I watched her nod.
Thinking about my sister though I really wondered how mad she and my friends were for bailing on them… well I didn’t technically bail on them but I’m sure they thought so.
I really wished my phone wasn’t dead so I could at least read their more than likely angry messages. Crap, I’m sure they think I’m ignoring them too… Ooh god I’m totally gonna get it from Soo tomorrow.
I mean it’s not like I got hit on purpose though! I didn’t want to be here anymore than- wait…
Uh... what the hell is she doing? She turned left?
Crap.
“I told you to make a right, didn’t I,” I questioned.
Did I say left by accident? My head was still a bit fuzzy and I was pretty tired so it was entirely possible I messed u-
“You did,” she replied while checking one of her mirrors.
Oh…
What the hell?
“Then-“
“You see that black van behind us?” I turned to look and hummed. I saw it but it just looked like a normal van to me.
“Yeah?”
“They’ve been following us for the past ten minutes.” Huh?!
No way… have they really?
“Seriously,” I asked as I sneaked another peek via side-view mirror. I totally didn’t even notice. She hummed. “Why? What for?”
“I have no idea,” she said while she made another quick turn.
I nodded a- but wait…
“How do you know they’re following us then? They could just be going the same way,” I suggested. There were millions of people in this town and we were on some pretty main streets. How did she know they weren’t just going this way too?
“I thought so at first too but at that last light I got a better look at the driver.”
Okay, she was definitely going to have to elaborate on that one more.
“And?”
“And~,” she held out while making yet another turn. “I’m pretty sure it’s this reporter that follows me everywhere. He must have recognized Sunny’s car or something,” she said exhaustedly.
No freaking way.
“Seriously?” She nodded. “Why?”
“I’m afraid so Taeyeon. He probably didn’t get any good shots of me yet or something, I don’t know. He usually gives up by now.”
I couldn’t believe the words coming out of … well, I could believe it because I’m witnessing it happen, but damn. People in this business were ridiculous. How- oh god.
Another thought just hit me.
If this guy was coming after her to take more pictures, wouldn’t I be in them too? I mean I was sitting beside her and-
Oh no. No, no, no.
That could not happen… at all. There had to be a way out of this.
“Wh-what do we do now?” She shrugged.
“I don’t know, Sunny usually just takes me home. The building I live in has a garage that you can’t get in unless you live there.”
Of course she does… Stu- wait. Oh!
“Call Sunny and see if she has an idea,” I suggested. She must know all the tricks. Tiffany gasped.
“Omo, good idea! You’re a genius,” she said before reaching for her phone. I internally scoffed.
I’m not a genius, I just have some common sense…
She set it to speaker phone, but it was no use. Even after three more tries her manager didn’t pick up and I couldn’t believe it. My mind was blown.
Isn’t it in her job description to pick up the phone always, especially when her client is calling? Isn’t that what a freaking manager does?
UGH, oh my god.
“What do we do Taeyeon? She’s not answering.”
Thanks captain obvious…
“I don’t know what to do either Tiffany, I’m not exactly an expert on running from the paparazzi you know,” I commented. She worriedly sighed before making another turn.
Great, looks like Miss Idol over here doesn’t have any ideas either… I guess it was all up to me.
I tried to think about how I could get out of this car and quickly home without getting caught by the stupid photographer and I could’ve seriously hit myself upside the head for not thinking about this ten minutes ago.
Why didn’t I do just that?
Ugh, I’ll blame the head injury for now.
“Pull over.”
“Pull over,” she questioned. I hummed.
“Yeah I’ll just get out and walk home from here.”
“And leave me alone!?”
“Uh, yeah?”
Wasn’t that kind of obvious?
“What am I supposed to do then?” I chuckled.
Really?
I mean really?
“Go home? Go find your manager,” I suggested. “I don’t know, just pull over and let me out and then you’ll never have to see me again.”
That was the part I was most excited about honestly. Being this close to a celebrity was seriously exhausting and I wasn’t even doing anything slightly strenuous.
“I- I can’t do that,” she countered.
UHM.
“Why th-,” I paused and took a deep breath after quickly catching my almost mistake. “I-I mean why not? I can just walk home, its seriously not that far.”
Did she feel bad about making me walk after almost giving me a concussion or something because it’s understandable and she should, but this was a whole new game now… I had to get out of this car and away from Tiffany.
I could not be photographed with her.
“Wh-what if he sees you get out or notice I have one less passenger and that there’s suddenly someone walking or something? He’ll totally ambush you. You can’t just get out and walk Taeyeon,” she said sounding more and more sure of herself as she went. Great.
Although I’m pretty sure she just made that up, it was undeniably a pretty good point. If he stopped me or tried to take pictures of just me there was no way I could outrun him let alone his van.
.
We needed somewhere to hide. Somewhere we could park the car out of site and lay low until he goes away. I tried to think of the places we could go around us but none of them would be good enough.
We could go to the park that was near my house but if she parked her car anywhere it’d be a dead giveaway… that was how he found her in the first place afterall. We didn’t have a magical garage that only let us in either so that was completely out of the- oh my god!
“Bingo,” I said aloud after the idea gloriously flew into my mind.
Maybe I was a genius like Tiffany said after all.
“Turn right. I have a plan.”
___________________________________________________
“This was your plan,” Tiffany asked with a hint of anger. I hummed. “You had a garage the whole time and you didn’t even manage to bring that up on-“
“Ah-ah,” I said, cutting her off as I waved my finger in the air. “This isn’t my garage.”
“What,” she exclaimed as her eyes bulged. I almost laughed. “You mean we’re in some random persons garage Kim Taeyeon?” I nodded. “You know that’s totally trespassing right?” I shrugged. “Oh my god,” she said in English.
She wasn’t wrong either. It was trespassing… technically.
“I’m going to get caught by that jerk and the police all in one night. I can see it in the headlines now.” Okay, now I really had to laugh. Her expression was hilarious.
“You’re not going to get arrested or photographed Tiffany, I know the owner of the garage. She would never press charges on us. Its fine,” I assured. She took a deep breath. “And we totally avoided that reporter thanks to me so you’re welcome. I think he just drove by again.”
“Jinjja,” she asked excitedly. I nodded and she took a few steps closer to look out the window for herself.
Actually, I wasn’t sure if it was the van that had passed by for a second time or not because I was too busy laughing at Tiffany’s little meltdown but I definitely saw taillights and not that many people drive by here at this hour so I think we’re in good shape.
“Daebak,” she said happily. “This was a great idea Taeyeon. How did you know it would be empty?” I smirked.
“The lady who lives here doesn’t have a car, it’s always empty.” She nodded.
“And you just happened to know the code? Or are you some kind of master criminal,” she grinned. I laughed.
Master criminal, right…
“She’s my neighbor,” I answered simply. “Totally sinister I know, but I run errands for her sometimes and every now and then I have to come in here too.”
“Ooh~,” she held out. “Well isn’t that nice of you.” I shrugged.
“I guess,” I replied as I took another glance out the window. “She used to watch Hyoyeon and I a lot when we were younger so she’s kinda like family… I think he’s gone though.” She moved closer to the window again.
“Really? You think our aversion tactic threw him off?”
I don’t really think waiting at a yellow light until the last possible second and then turning counted as an ‘aversion tactic’ but it did leave him at the light long enough for us to get the car smoothly into my neighbor’s garage so I wasn’t going to complain.
“Looks like it,” I said. “I haven’t seen anyone else so let’s give it a few more minutes to be sure and then you can- oh?”
I saw another pair of headlights roll onto the street and… Damnit!
I spoke too soon. It was unfortunately the same black van that had been following us a-and-
Oh my god.
What the hell was it doing?!
No. N-no don’t tell me he’s… he’s-
.
He parked.
That son of a actually parked his stupid van on the side of the street.
It thankfully wasn’t in front of this house, but it was just a few down.
We were completely stuck now.
“Heol… how are we supposed to get out now,” Tiffany asked softly after watching the whole thing too. I audibly sighed.
“I don’t know. I guess the only thing we can do now is wait.… He won’t stay there all night will he?”
I mean there was no other choice but to wait, right? It’s not like she could just stroll out there and drive away, especially now that I drug my neighbor into this. She would get photographed, I would get photographed and my neighbor’s house would be the backdrop in every single one.
Damn, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea…
No, I assured myself. It will work. It has to work.
We’ll wait until he leaves and then Tiffany can drive herself home while I go home and forget this night ever happened. I have to work for nine hours tomorrow and I could now count the hours I had left until I had to go to work on one hand. Tomorrow is gonna be hell. She shrugged.
“They stay outside my apartment all night sometimes,” she said apologetically.
Damnit! All night? I just-
“Wait seriously?” She nodded. “Do they- never mind,” I said, cutting myself off.
. Do these people have nothing better to do than follow people around all day and night? Don’t they have jo-
Right… that is their job.
I sighed again.
“Let’s just wait and see what he does first, okay?”
I couldn’t let it drive me crazy yet. Who knows! The guy might give up in ten minutes when nothing exciting happens anyway! For all he knows we could have kept driving down the street and to a different one. This house isn’t the only one with a garage on this street either. He has no idea where we actually are.
Maybe he’ll get a call here soon about another idol out and about and he’ll have to leave. We’ll just have to wait and see… and waiting is exactly what we did.
Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes… when the thirty-five minute marked came around, and after I caught myself dozing off… again, I took another glance out the tiny garage window and could not believe my eyes.
No, this wasn’t real. This couldn’t be happening…
Not only was the black van that followed us still out there, but there was now another equally as ominous black van pulled up right beside it. I had some pretty bad thoughts to as why it was here and within the next five minutes they were confirmed.
I didn’t want to believe it but when the second van pulled off of this street and then back on a few minutes later, I knew what it was.
This brought in reinforcements!
Not only was there one photographer out here looking for her, now there were two and one was freaking patrolling!
“This won’t do,” I sighed. Ugh. I don’t know if it was because I was so annoyed or just plain tired, but I rashly and foolishly made a decision.
There was no way we were getting out of this any time soon and there was no way I’d be able to be on my feet all day tomorrow without at least a few hours of rest.
“Tiffany-ssi,” I said to the girl that was passed out in the front seat.
At least it wasn’t just me that was tired.
“Hey Tiffany,” I said a little bit louder, thankfully pulling her from her nap.
“Huh,” she hummed cluelessly. I watched her eyes open and- “Wha- oh!” Her eyes shot wide open at me now. “Oh, uh-uhm, di-did he leave?”
I was a little confused as to what she was confused about, but I guess being awoken in a dark garage by someone you’ve known for only a few hours is pretty startling… I shook my head.
“No, but we can’t stay here all night. Let’s go.” I grabbed my bag from the car and headed for the door.
“Go,” she practically yelled.
“Shh! Jesus, do you want someone to hear you,” I asked. She briefly covered but then asked again.
“Where are we going though? You said that he didn’t leave…” I nodded.
“I know, were going to- omo,” I said as the sudden worry popped in my head. I needed to leave my neighbor a message ASAP.
If she woke up tomorrow and found a car in her garage I’m sure she’d be sufficiently confused. I know I would be.
“Can I borrow your phone?” Her brows furrowed.
“Why?” I sighed. Seriously?
“I need to call my neighbor and tell her not to freak out when she finds a car in her garage, that’s why.”
“Oh… right,” she said before handing over her phone.
I typed in the number I knew as well as my mom’s and waited for the beep. Quickly leaving a short message telling her not to freak out and that it was me who left the car there, I hung up and handed the phone back to Tiffany.
“Okay, let’s go before I change my mind.”
“Taeyeon,” she said firmly. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.” I sighed.
I was hoping it was obvious… I took a deep breath and-
“We’re going to my house,” I answered simply. “Unless you want to stay in here all night…” Her eyes widened, but there was no response.
Heol… did she really want to stay in this dungy garage rather than my house? I mean my house was no five star hotel, but it was way better than this…
She was like a statue.
“Well? Are you coming or what?”
“Ye-yeah,” she said after standing up as quick as lightning. “Let me grab my bag.” I nodded.
I already regretted this decision.
___________________________________________________
Kinda short chapter^^
Sorry~!
BUT I wanted the next part to be in Tiffany's POV so I had to stop somewhere haha
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