It was a nightmare.

It felt like waking up from a dream into your worst fears.

Everything had crumbled down to pieces.

There was no way out of it. There was no way we could get out of it.

It was just a nightmare.

When I was a trainee, we all had the same nightmare—to be kicked out of training.

When I was in SIXTEEN, the nightmare was to not debut with the new girl group.

When I became a part of Twice, the nightmare was to mess up on performances.

Now in this relationship with Momo, my nightmare had unfolded before my eyes.

“It’s going to be okay, Mina.”

Momo had tried every possible way to console me on our way to Beijing. Nothing was working. Nothing could take my attention away from thinking about all the things that would happen to us once we step out of the plane.

“It’s going to be okay.”

“What if it’s not going to be okay, Momo?” I scowled at her.

“Mina,” she said in a hushed tone.

“Let’s not talk about this here, Momo,” I said to her.

I had been noticing a few heads in first class, nosy passengers turning towards our direction, trying to get a peek of us.

“People are looking.”

People had already known about our relationship—people we didn’t know.

Jihyo had called me in panic earlier, demanding us not to take that flight back to Seoul and just grab the earliest flight to Beijing where we would be having our performance.

She said it was total chaos in the city.

She said we were everywhere.

She said media people were hunting us down.

I sighed in grief.

 By this time, we would have reached international news sites and the comments on Naver would have come to thousands.

I hadn’t checked. I hadn’t read anything since hearing about it from Jihyo.

I was scared.

I was afraid for my career, Momo’s career, and our group’s career.

What would happen now that our dating scandal was revealed?

What would happen to Twice?

It would have been alright if it was just me in this controversy, but there were plenty of us.

I tried not to think about it in the plane.

I wanted to forget about it even for just an hour as I held onto Momo’s hand.

Once that plane would land, it would be a whole different world.

We wouldn’t be safe anymore.

“Oh my goodness. Thank god you’re both here.”

Our long-time manager was waiting for us at the Beijing airport. He didn’t look great. He looked as much of a mess as I was. There was a heavy smile on his face.

“The president sent me early here for you.”

“Oppa…” I said.

The tall, plump man had pulled the two of us in a hug. “I was so worried that they would catch you in Japan.”

“Is it really that bad, oppa?” Momo asked.

“Let’s just talk in the car. Hurry. Get in.”

We rode the van on our way to the h