Chapter 3

As I left the company building on Friday night, I saw a girl waiting a little way away outside. It wasn’t such an unusual sight in itself, except that I’d noticed her before when I went out to pick up food around lunch today, and she was still there…

I walked up to her and asked if she was waiting for someone, saying nearly everyone in the office had gone home.

“Ahh… have the boys gone home too?” she asked, looking disappointed.

I frowned, realizing she must be a fan.

“Look sweetie,” I told her, “you’re really not supposed to wait out here for them. Bang PD hates it, and if he catches you, you’ll be in big trouble…”

“Ah but…” she started to argue and I shook my head.

“They’re not here today anyways,” I lied, and saw the disappointment on her face.

“Oh…” she said, “well, thanks anyways.” And then she turned and walked away.

A few days later, I spotted her again, but as soon as she saw me heading towards her, she scampered away. I thought she’d learned her lesson after I didn’t see her again for the rest of the week, but then on Sunday evening, as I stepped out of my apartment to go get food, I heard someone call out to me.

“Unnie!”

I turned around and it was the same girl from before. I was slightly freaked out, wondering how she’d found out where I lived, so I pretended not to hear her and started walking away faster.

“Unnie, please!” she called out after me, “you have to help me!”

“Look, kid, I dunno how you found out where I live but I can’t help you talk to them! You shouldn’t try to meet them outside of official channels either, that’s called stalking!” I scolded her, rather harshly.

“But I tried to call him and he won’t answer my calls! And when I went to the office I was brusquely turned away!”

“Well, that’s what they do to sasaeng fans! It’s not ok to follow them around!”

“I’m not sasaeng!” she cried out, “I’m pregnant!”

I stopped like someone had dumped a stack of bricks on my head.

“What?” I uttered, wanting her to prove me that I’d heard incorrectly.

“I’m pregnant.” she said, more quietly, “and it’s his.”

Nope, there were the bricks on my head again. ‘in’ Hell, Hoseok… why can’t you just keep it in your pants???’ Those were my thoughts as I struggled to keep it together and figure out what I should do next.

I brought the girl inside my apartment, sitting her down at my kitchen table while I made coffee and called Hobi, telling him to get his down here RIGHT NOW. He was confused at the anger in my voice, but agreed. My place wasn’t far from HQ anyways.

While we waited, I asked the girl to tell me everything, going slowly, from the beginning.

She told me that she’d met Hoseok at ISAC in August; she worked in catering as a part time job and had been part of the staff that delivered them their lunch. He’d flirted with her and she’d ended up exchanging kakaotalk IDs with him and meeting up later in the week. She said she didn’t normally do this sort of thing but that “Hoseok Oppa” had been so charming, and she knew he was famous and she felt really flattered, so she’d ended up sleeping with him. They had used a , so she didn’t know what happened. Maybe it broke. After a month had passed and she didn’t get her period, she started freaking out and took a pregnancy test and it was positive. She’d spent the last two weeks trying to get in touch with Hoseok but he was ignoring her, so she was becoming desperate.

About 15 minutes later, my doorbell rang. She looked up anxiously and I went to answer the door.

“Hey Noona!” Hoseok greeted me cheerfully, “What’s so urgent? Did you miss me so much you wanted to see me on your day off?”

The flat, angry look I gave him wiped the smirk off his face, and he stepped inside quietly as I led him into the kitchen.

“Oh, hello.” he said in surprise, spotting the girl sitting at the table, and I realized in an instant that he had no idea who she was.

‘You poor dumb …’ I thought, shaking my head.

The girl got up, crying “Oppa!!” and ran to him, grabbing his hand in hers and clutching it to her chest.

“Hey there… just…” he started, uneasily, trying to extricate his hand from her grasp as gently as he could.

“Oppa, I’ve been trying to talk to you… you’ve been ignoring me…” she said, tears coming up in her eyes, not letting go.

“Look, hun, just… I’ve been really busy…” he added, making excuses and looking terribly uncomfortable as he tried to get her away from him. He threw an irritated glance in my direction, as if asking me why the heck I’d let this weirdo have a go at him, but then she blurted out, in a high pitched cry:

“I’m pregnant, you fool!”

He turned to look at her, and stopped all resistance. Ironically, she also let go of his hand at that moment.

“What?!”

“I’m pregnant!”

I saw all the recollections come back to him as if someone had flipped on the light switch inside his head. He did remember her after all.

“No, no, no…” he said, walking the few steps over to the nearest chair and sitting down.

“It’s yours” she said, almost in a sneer, as if she knew that would be the next question he asked.

“How can you be sure?”

“What you think I sleep around a lot?!” she snapped, getting hysterical, “You think I’m a or something?!!!”

“No, no, no one’s saying that honey…” I said, trying to calm her down, but she shoved me away, walking up to him again.

“You’re the only guy I’ve slept with in over a year! If it’s not yours, then whose is it, huh?” she wailed, tears were actually streaming down her cheeks and I tried to pull her back.

Hoseok was stunned into silence and just slumped in the chair, mumbling to himself things like “but no, it can’t be…”

She wailed at him a bit more, but he was totally unresponsive. In the end, I said I would try to talk to him, and promised to call her back the next day. She was reluctant to leave, but finally agreed to it, and once she was gone, I walked back towards the table, and sat in front of Hoseok, who sat there, head in his hands, staring at nothing with the strongest expression of shock and disbelief I’ve ever seen on anyone’s face in my whole life.

“Nari…. What am I gonna do?” he asked, finally looking up at me with big, innocent eyes.

“You really ed up this time, Hoseok.” I told him, trying to keep the judgment out of my voice, and he looked back down, hanging his head.

***

We stayed up late, discussing the situation, and I even had to call in to tell his manager that I was dealing with a crisis with Hoseok and he wasn’t coming back tonight. I sent him back to his dorm later, to sleep, which he probably didn’t do, since when I saw him the next day, his eyes were totally bloodshot and he looked like hell.

The first thing I did that next day was call that girl back and tell her that she should give him a few days to get used to the news, which she reluctantly agreed to. I also convinced him to unblock her on kkt, and he started talking to her again.

It was some sort of twisted luck that the boys’ new album release had ended up being pushed back to the end of November, because I don’t know how we would have been able to deal with the situation amidst a comeback. Comebacks are the harshest of times for an idol because they are basically getting NO sleep. They get up at 7 or 8 in the morning, come into the office, get their hair and makeup done, then they go to whatever music show they’re scheduled for and do pre-recording, then they head out for whatever schedule they have – it could be a radio interview or a photoshoot – and then come back to the TV station for the live show, after which they might have another schedule, or a signing, and they’ll get back to the studio around 10 or 11pm. They’ll spend a few hours practicing and head back to their dorm at 3 or 4am, go to bed and then recycle and repeat the pattern for about a month. No rest. No breaks. It was a grueling schedule that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone really, yet some considered it a fair price to pay for a chance at fame. Honestly, it was a wonder the boys didn’t get sick more often. As it was, things were only slightly less hectic. Most of their time was spent in the studio, recording or reworking tracks, and when they weren’t doing that they were practicing their dance again and again. Pair that up with a few performances at several outdoor festivals… it wasn’t exactly what I’d call a restful schedule. Still, it left them some private time to occasionally go off on personal business slightly unnoticed, say, to hook up with the girl they’d accidentally impregnated… -_-

When I found out that’s what he’d been doing, I blew a fuse. I had a screaming fit at him and nearly punched him in the face when he jokingly told me that at least he didn’t have to worry about getting her pregnant again, only reminding myself at the last moment that we were in public and it would probably cost me my job if someone saw me damage his precious face. But I was furious. Weeks had passed already and he hadn’t done anything about the whole situation besides getting on the girl’s good side, and I grew ever more worried as each day passed.

***

finally hit the fan one week before the comeback.

One day, as I walked into work, there was a note on my desk that the big boss wanted to see me. When I went to see what it was about, he asked me to bring Hoseok to him, and I had a sinking feeling in my chest that I knew what it was about. I went to fetch the boy, who was still half asleep, and closed the door quietly behind me.

“Hoseok-ah,” said our boss in a quiet, serious voice, tossing away the pen he’d been holding on his desk and looking up at the kid, “you know I care about you boys as if you were my own…” he started, not looking at Hoseok, and I saw him turn to glance at me with a worried look on his face. “I think I’ve been rather fair thus far, as a PD, giving you guys a lot of freedom and letting you do pretty much whatever you want… within reason.”

Hoseok said nothing.

“Of course, everyone in the office is aware of your little after-school activities,” he went on, still looking at the papers on his desk, “but WHAT THE WERE YOU THINKING?!?!!!” he snapped, finally looking up at Hoseok, his face the angriest I’d ever seen him, and so loud that I’m sure the whole entire floor must’ve heard.

Hobi visibly shrank away from him, his hands behind his back and looked down in shame. I felt a brief moment of pity for the kid, even though I felt exactly the same way Bang PD did.

He gave Hoseok an earful for a good 20 minutes, and ended up telling him that he was putting him on house arrest. He was not to leave the building without permission, not to go to the bathroom before informing staff, and that I was to make sure he’d go back to his dorm every night, and pick him up there every morning. And, most of all, he was not to meet with this girl again until we figured out what she wanted and if she was really pregnant.

Hobi nodded weakly, thinking he’d be allowed to go after that but the boss wasn’t done.

“Oh and if she does turn out to be pregnant with your child, you’d better be ready to get married because I am not having a freakin’ scandal like that on my hands.”

“What?!” exclaimed Hoseok in distress, “but I don’t even love her?! , I barely even know her!!”

“Well I guess you should’ve thought of that before you got yourself into that mess.” the boss retorted. His voice was calm, but he was furious. Hoseok decided not to push his luck and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Outside, he turned to me and shot me a look of pure hatred.

“I know what you’re thinking but I didn’t say anything!” I defended myself, snapping at him.

“Why have you been assigned as my permanent baby-sitter then?” he snapped back at me.

“How the should I know?!” I snapped back at him, angrily, making a few heads look up at us in the office.

I sighed and dragged him into an empty cubicle.

“Hobi, you know I would never do that…” I told him, quietly, looking him in the eye.

He looked back at me, with defiant suspicion, but then seemed to decide I was telling the truth and all the fight went out of him.