Pretending I am okay, I half smile because everything, including the day my heart ripped, has passed by

Pretending not to love you, I erase and empty your traces

- Pretending I am okay by Hoya

Jealousy. That was the only thing Howon could feel as she saw the sight on his television screen. One of his friends hugging his ex-girlfriend, on a public broadcast, witnessed by public.

Just what was in Woohyun's mind when he did that? The dancer began to wonder. Was it because he's overjoyed? Or was it because of something else?

It irritated him more than he thought that he had a hard time to erase that image from his mind.

The fact that he was alone at his apartment was not helping. As pathethic it sounded, sometimes he felt lonely at the spacey apartment. There were times where he wished that he had someone else on his side--- there were times where he wished that he had Myungeun next to him.

Before Howon knew it, he already made his way out of his apartment to meet a few friends and get some drink with them. It was not that he had any other plan to celebrate Christmas, anyway. Even though he was known to be a heavy drinker, Howon wished he would at least get drunk this time, so he could forget about everything he had just seen. All the curiosity, and jealousy.

Eventually, Howon did get drunk that night. He did not even remember how many shots he had as he woke up the next morning at one of his friends' place. The hangover was pretty bad as he felt stinging pain on his head the moment he tried to get up. The next thing he did was picking up his phone, to find a few unread messages. A few from his brother, whom he did not manage to greet last night, tons from the Infinite group-chat, which most likely was filled with unnecessary spams, one from Sunggyu, and a few from Sungjong, who also gave him a christmas greeting, and asked him why he was not appearing in the group chat.

The last name he saw on his phone, however, was also one name he did not see at that moment. It was Myungeun. The message was simple, typical Myungeun, who greeted him merry christmas, but the other question she texted made him remember what had been bothering him since last night.

"Did you watch my performance?"

In the end, Howon decided not to reply to the message, leaving it completely ignored.

He simply did not want to have anything to do with her, as well with Woohyun, at that moment. Although he knew it would be immpossible, since it was the day of SBS Gayo Daejun, where both Infinite and Lovelyz were participating.

When he thought things couldn’t go worse, he received a call from the company. To be exact, from the CEO, who said that he needed to have a small talk with him. Whatever that ‘small talk’ would be, Howon had a feeling that it would not be good.

***

"Look, look, unnie, they said you and Woohyun sunbae have a great chemistry!" the youngest member of Lovelyz, Yein, uttered the words out loud.

"Unnie, they also said that your vocals are really good!" the second youngest, Sujeong, added in.

The Lovelyz girls were heading to the place where SBS Gayo Daejun was held as they read the reaction articles for Woohyun and Myungeun's performance. In fact, the girls had been doing that, reading as many articles as they could find since they woke up this morning.

"Oooh, this one comment said that the person had no idea that we had another good vocalist besides Kei unnie...." Yein's excitement ceased slightly when she read that comment, "That is sad... we have four good vocalists here! Kei unnie, Sujeong unnie, Soul unnie, and Myungeun unnie, of course!" she continued, which was responded with a nod by Jiae and Jisoo.

"I am happy for you, Myungeun-ah..." amidst the loudness from the two youngest members, Kei managed to get closer to Myungeun and told her so.

"Unnie..." Myungeun could not help but feel a little bad towards her fellow main vocal. She and Myungeun used to be closer back in the days. The older always said that she wished to form a ballad sub-unit with her. But as time passed, and the company kept favouring the older vocalist, the two began drifted away, more so because Myungeun felt slight jealousy towards the older.

"Thank you, unnie...." the younger uttered the words with a smile without telling the other how she actually felt. Instead, she silently wished that her relationship with Kei would gradually turned into the way it was after this.

The two main vocalists' conversation, however, was broken off when Yein read a title of an article she just found, again, out loud. "Infinite's Woohyun and Lovelyz's JIN, are they dating?"

The sentence earned a squeal from the two youngest members, causing the older ones to look at the backseat, where the three magnaes were sitting together.

"What—?? What are you even reading, Yein-ah?" flabbergasted, Myungeun tried to snatch the phone from Yein’s hand.

"I don't know, unnie! The article said so!" the younger of the two somehow looked excited and surprised at the same time.

Myungeun raised her eyebrow as she read the article. The screencap of Woohyun hugging her was there, on the article, again. Somehow the attention felt so strange to her, since she was so used to being ignored by people.

But the article was ridiculous, Journalists really liked to make things up, huh? After all, she only saw and only loved one person.

"Ridiculous", she suddenly heard a voice uttered the word, totally speaking out what was in her mind.

"We all know who Myungeun actually loves…. right, Myungeun-ah?" Mijoo, who had been silent for a while now, suddenly spoke up as she looked at the backseat.

"Y-yes, unnie..." somehow Mijoo looked scary, as if she was annoyed because of the article. She could’ve had ask the older why was she being like that, but somehow felt that she better not to.

Then she remembered her messages for Howon. The moment she woke up this morning, she immediately went to check her phone, only to find that the messages had been read, without being replied. She could not help but wonder why.

The first thing Myungeun did as soon as they arrived at COEX was looking for Howon. If Howon didn't reply to her text, she could just greet him directly, right? However, her intention was stopped as she suddenly felt a pair of hands covering her eyes. The girl squeaked as her view got blocked all of a sudden.

"Guess who~" Myungeun could have screamed has she not recognized the voice immediatel, but, it was no other than the familiar voice of Infinite's main vocalist.

"Woohyun oppa...?" the girl said the name as she tried to wriggle free from him.

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