Two Years Ago...

Seungcheol slumped down against the walls of the Pledis building, waiting for NU’EST to finish practice so that Seventeen TV could start. He and the rest of the members (except the new one, Junghan) were waiting, talking amongst themselves, gossiping about the new member.

Junghan had only been with them a couple of days. Seungcheol thought he was nice enough, and kind of cute too. Seungcheol thought that he looked really young, and so it was surprising when Seungcheol found out that he was actually the same age.

Junghan was in the upstairs offices signing papers with his parents and Pledisboss, which meant that it was official: Junghan would probably become part of Seventeen. He would become someone with which Seungcheol would spend a lot of time in the future.

Junghan and his parents descended from the office. Seungcheol and the rest of the members stood up to bow to them. When Seungcheol rose from the bowing position, he made eye contact with the parents. His heart stopped.

.

This was bad. It was really bad.

He was with this woman only a few nights ago. He was not only with her, he was with her.

, Seungcheol thought again.

The mother also stiffened when she saw Seungcheol. They were both frozen for a good five seconds, in pure shock.

“Excuse me honey,” Junghan’s mom told her husband, “I’m going to go outside. I need some air.” She immediately turned, and walked outside, her hand rubbing her head. Junghan’s dad, who seemed a jolly man, smiled and bowed towards the other members and followed his wife.

Seeing the husband of a woman with whom Seungcheol slept was not a very gratifying experience. Realizing that you slept with the mother of someone with whom you were going to spend the rest of your career was also not very gratifying.

It was almost traumatizing for Seungcheol. Every bone in his body froze, and he felt like just wanted to disappear from the face of the earth right away. He felt so extremely guilty. He’d slept with married women before, but never did his heart ache so much because of it. Proabably because this time, his sin was there with him, coming back to bite him, to ruin him.

“Seungcheol, what’s wrong?” Jihoon asked, noticing Seungcheol’s static posture and his shaken facial expression.

Seungcheol grabbed Jihoon’s arm and dragged him into the bathroom. He needed to tell someone about this, to alleviate some of the heaviness that it was causing in his chest. It just so happened that Jihoon was one of his closest friends in the group.

“I ing slept with his mom,” Seungcheol admitted to Jihoon in distress as soon as the bathroom door was closed.

Jihoon’s jaw dropped. He blinked a few times, and asked, just to confirm: “Junghan’s mom?”

Seungcheol nodded, “she was in the bar that I was at… and she was hot... and… oh God. Kill me now Jihoon…” Seungcheol put his hands over his face and lowered himself to the ground.

It took a few moments for Jihoon to recollect his thoughts and overcome the shock. He could see that Seungcheol was extremely stressed out and guilty about the whole thing, and he felt like he needed to do something to make it better. He patted his friend’s back, “it’s okay, Seungcheol. Just don’t tell anyone about it. No one will find out.”

“How could I face Junghan after I did that, Jihoon? How?”

“Just… just…” Jihoon tried to think of something to say. “It’ll be hard at first, but you’ll get used to it, okay? Just… don’t bring it up again.”

“I hate my ing life,” Seungcheol groaned, “Should I just drop out of Seventeen? I can’t be in the same group as someone if I slept with his mom. I just can’t.”

“No! Hyung, you’ve been training with Pledis for like five years. You’re not going to drop out because of some stupid one-night stand.”

“But…”

Jihoon grabbed Seungcheol’s arm and pulled him up from the floor. He dragged him to the sink and the faucet, helping him wash his face. The cold water on Seungcheol’s face helped alleviate the some of the strain.

“Listen to me,” Jihoon told Seungcheol, “you’re going to go out there. We’re going to film Seventeen TV. You’re going to interact with Junghan, befriend him, play around with him. You’re going to make these potential fans ship you guys like crazy. He will never know about this, got it? You are never going to bring it up ever again. You’re also going to stop with these one-night stands, okay? Please stop?”

Seungcheol nodded as he looked at himself in the mirror. He had been disenchanted with his lifestyle lately. He had stopped the drugs, but the and the alcohol was still a part of it. He wanted to change. He really did. He wanted to stop wasting money and time in clubs and motels, and he wanted to focus his energy investing in his career and s instead.

This whole ordeal with Junghan’s mom seemed to be a wake-up call for him. He needed to stop living like that. From then on, Seungcheol vowed to stop with the one-night stands, and vowed to drink in moderation.

“What if it gets out?” Seungcheol asked Jihoon. “What if Junghan finds out and hates me?”

“He won’t. You’re not going to tell anyone. Junghan’s adulterous mom certainly won’t tell anyone. And you know I would never tell anyone. We’d be the only three people in the world to know about it.”

Seungcheol took a deep breath. He certainly felt calmer because of Jihoon. His heart was at least beating at the normal pace again, and he didn’t feel that twitch in his chest that kept him from breathing.

“Come on, hyung,” Jihoon took Seungcheol’s hand, “let’s go greet Junghan.”

Seungcheol nodded and took a deep breath as Jihoon dragged him out from the bathroom. He would just have to face it, live with the mistake and keep it buried in his memories. Hopefully, it would never resurface to haunt him...

Seungcheol squeezed Jihoon’s hand in gratitude. If there was anything good in his life right now, it was Jihoon. He was so very glad that he had such a dependable friend.

A/N: I realize that I switch a lot between stage names and real names. hopefully it's not confusing.

Also I want formally apologize to Junghan's mom for this...