Chapter 2
Forever at your service, princess[Flashback to somewhere slightly before Krystal’s filming in China started]
She was in the middle of dance practice for her upcoming movie in China with Lay when the practice room door opened, Kai walking in and greeting the dance instructor before proceeding to where Lay and her were standing.
“I’m kidnapping you two for dinner. The dance instructor gave permission to end practice early already. Come on, let’s go! I’m craving for some lobster. Soojung ah, do you know any good restaurant that serves delicious lobsters?”
Quite stunned by his sudden entrance and dinner invitation, Krystal honestly didn’t know what to do. She glanced over Lay and saw him already packing his stuff so she pondered for a second. She and her sister indeed have a favorite lobster menu and it’d been quite a while since they last dined there.
“Come on, my treat! Chances like this don’t come every day ~” The guy in front of her urged in a sing-song voice.
Even though they have known each other since their trainee days, they had never hung out together outside of work. She was still unsure whether to decline his offer, but seeing Lay, who was already done with packing and standing next to her, nodding, she let out a sigh and gave her answer.
“Fine. Only because you’re paying. And I want manager oppa to go with us.”
“Deal.” Kai grinned and grabbed Lay’s shoulder, pushing him towards to door.
[After dinner]
“A-choo!” Krystal sneezed in her super cute fashion, hands coming up to rub the sides of both arms when they reached the restaurant exit.
“Wait here Soojung, I’ll go grab a padded jacket for you in the car. Don’t go out just yet.” Their manager told her and immediately dashed to the car park, not wanting to make the girl wait too long.
Lay had already excused himself due to personal matters in the middle of dinner, leaving her standing awkwardly with Kai near the exit door. Seeing the girl shivering, Kai tossed her his green flannel, his face slightly turning red.
“Put it on. The car park’s not that close by.”
“No thanks, I don’t want your germs.” She snickered, playfully declined his offer.
But he already shoved the green thing into her arms and walked out of the door, mumbling a string of words she didn’t quite understand that sound like “stubborn girl” or something along the line of that.
“Amber has a similar shirt too…” She thought to herself before hesitantly putting it on to preserve warmth, anxiously praying her manager would be back soon.
Just when she felt her body stopped shivering, her manager appeared with an awfully familiar looking black long padded jacket. Immediately taking Kai’s flannel off, she took a quick sniff at the one her manager gave her, taking in the soothing scent of its owner, for she’s been acquainted with it ever since. The instant warmth comforted her like no other and she happily strutted towards the waiting car, holding on tightly to the jacket she had just put on, oblivious to the nearby camera flash.
[End of flashback]
“You had no idea you were being followed right? The pictures look like you were indeed having a date with couple items. Frankly speaking, you did us a huge favor there. The company is indebted to you and Kai, Soojung-ssi. I can’t tell you more than this as of now. Besides, this would instantly boost both of your popularity, so think of it as a way to PR yourselves. For the time being, kindly refrain from taking any actions towards this news, we’ll take care of everything. You’ve been given one week off to rest, also to protect yourself from the heat of the controversy. Further instructions will be updated. In returns, expect some great news for f(x). You may go now.”
With that, everyone stood up and left the conference room. Krystal only managed to stand and briefly bowed to them before plopping down on the chair again, her thoughts clouded with his words.
Amber was turning her head to both sides, trying to spot the group’s shortest member in the crowd. “Dang, never thought the immigration check-in counter for foreigners took so long”, she mumbled under her breath, neck still craning to look for Luna. When she finally saw a figure stood still, surrounded by cameras and fans, she hurriedly made her way over and greeted the fans, not forgetting to pull her face mask down to her chin and strike random conversations with them. Dragging Luna by her arm, the two of them walked over to the van the other manager had been waiting in.
Once done putting their suitcases into the car trunk, Amber pulled out her phone and immediately started checking her social media accounts, ready to prank certain people for April’s Fool. While waiting for the app to load, Luna squeaked unexpectedly beside her, causing the manager who was driving to step on the brake all of a sudden. She swore the two of them could have lunged forward if it wasn’t for their seat belts.
“Yah Park Sunyoung!! Are you trying to get all of us killed?” Amber growled, definitely not amused at what just happened.
“OPPA!!! IS SOOJUNG REALLY DATING KAI???!!!” Luna ignored her and continued screaming towards the manager.
Ruffling his hair, he let out a huge sigh and pulled over to the side, halting the car to a complete stop. Pulling the hand brake, he turned around.
“I know as much as you do, Sunyoung. I was not assigned to accompany her these days remember?”
“What are the two of you talking about…?” Amber’s voice trembled, her hand already removed the phone out of Luna’s grasp, furiously scrolling through the article Dispatch had just released that morning.
“The company confirmed it, so there must be some truth in it, right?” Their manager spoke up while glancing over Amber whose face had turned red due to the growing anger.
“She never said anything to us. I could barely see her due to her busy schedule and she had a date with him? Is this the reason why they canceled her filming for next week? Oh gosh I don’t even know what to feel now.” Luna ranted, finding the whole thing absurd. It couldn’t be right? Their maknae could have already told them if she was dating right? Why would she keep something THAT important from them? Didn’t they promise to always confide in each other? Thousands of questions were running through her head that she barely noticed Amber had returned the phone onto her open palm.
“Can we get home first oppa? I still want some more sleep”, said the older member, her voice clean but cold. Facing the window, Amber had her hood pulled up, her snapback was turned to face in front, covering her eyes. The whole car ride back home was in dead silence as no one dared to spoke up, or rather afraid to tick off the time-bomb state Amber was in, knowing how alert the androgynous-looking member could be once a matter involved her princess.
She thought about confronting the younger girl once she got home, yet she couldn’t bring herself to dial or even text Krystal. It was an internal debate for Amber that lasted the whole day. She literally zoned out on her couch, staring into nothing and even forgot to eat. It was Jackjack’s constant barking that pulled her out of her trance. Picking the puppy up, he snuggled into her arms before letting out a yawn, indicating how late it was. She placed a light kiss onto his fur and put him down on his bed next to her mattress. By the time she realized, April’s Fool had ended without her being present on social media as usual. Her phone had been turned off after receiving the dreading news during the ride home.
Groggily waking up the next morning, she made up her mind. Dating or not, it was Krystal’s personal life anyways. She was, after all, only a servant to a royal princess. She knew something was not right. She knew how her label was. She could feel it in her guts. But it was not something she could not simply pry on, and with how Krystal acted the night before, she chose to ignore the whole thing and believe in her princess.
Determined to keep that thought in check, she picked her phone up and turned it on, shooting out a mass message to nearly half of her contacts, asking if any of them was free to hang out. She didn’t have to wait too long when her phone beeped. Grabbing her backpack and snapback, she dashed out of her apartment.
The next few days, Luna had also been busy with different schedules and Vic was still running around with her new drama, leaving her alone to drown in work. She spent hours trying to pick out the songs for her second mini album yet she couldn’t fully concentrate. Even with her team around, she would still zone out more than often and got threatened by Scott not just once but twice for the very same reason. Rubbing her hands over her face, she groaned.
“Ugh this is not working…”
Scott sat himself down next to her, patting her back, smirking evilly.
“You need Krystal, bro.”
Amber promptly sat up straight and shrugged his hand off, stubbornly countered back.
“And you need to mind your own business.”
She didn’t mean to sound so harsh. Guilt instantly crept onto her but Scott didn’t seem to mind at all. Instead, he widened that toothy grin and smacked her head, hard.
“Look who’s talking! Your llama brain alone wouldn’t do. You need her opinion, or else you won’t get this done any time soon. Just give her a call, what are you afraid of?”
She was spread eagle on the floor after that smack. She knew she needed that. What was she so afraid of anyways? She already told herself to get over something she did not have control of, so why not then?
“Bro, if you’re just gonna lie there, Imma actually give her a call myself.”
Scott joked only to earn a kick on his shin.
“Like you even have the highness’ number, you ”, she mumbled just loud enough for the guy to hear, Scott still wincing over his leg when he was locked in a bear hug. “But thanks a lot for knocking some sense into this llama brain, Scotty ~”. He laughed and pushed her away, gleefully sending his friend off.
Though she was determined to see Krystal after that talk with Scott, she believed it’d be better to give both of them time to clear their heads. When it reached the 5th day after the event in China, she started getting more and more anxious, seeing no signs of the younger girl anywhere. She asked around but no one seemed to know. Krystal might look strong outside but a princess is a princess. She is fragile too, and that’s when the ever loyal servant Amber comes into the picture.
She had just got off the phone with Luna and Vic, both of them wishing her ‘good luck’ for having to deal with the princess, which she had nervously laughed it off. She had also somehow foreseen herself talking to the door and not welcomed at all, so she made a few other calls and got her ‘props’ ready before heading off to the only place possible: The royal castle, where an Ice princess and a little princess dwell in.
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