Sehun hurriedly threw on a white tee and a pair of black jeans to meet up with his manager. The early morning ruckus woke Haemi up from her slumber, she tossed from one side to another before pulling herself up completely. Every inch of her wanted to sink back into the soft sheets to recover from last night’s activities. When she finally met eyes with Sehun, her senses began to slip back. He didn’t look too happy, she thought.

“Good morning,” she beamed cheerfully to thaw the heavy atmosphere. Sehun returned a small smile, it was hard to even fake the simple gesture right now. He carefully knelt down by her bedside to properly greet her. A hint of daylight filtered through the little openings of his blackout curtains, coincidentally highlighting the writer’s deep brown orbs in the process. Haemi instinctively shifted her body to block the golden rays from irritating his eyes. The edge of his lips lifted into a smile again, a genuine one this time as he gave her bed hair a light ruffle. 

“I have some work to do this morning. You can rest and leave whenever you feel like.”

Her heart sank in disappointment, she was hoping to spend a little bit more time with him since it was the weekend. They still have so much to talk about, especially after what unexpectedly went down last night. The thought of it alone triggered a subtle rush of heat up her now, reddened cheeks. Haemi nodded slowly, her mind went blank in the very next minute when he planted a kiss on top of her head. She watched him take an incoming phone call from Bohyun, their conversation dying out as Sehun disappeared behind the doors. The few words that she was able to catch, indicated a meet up, to which Haemi could only assume was for work. To prevent wasting a precious weekend ahead, the editor managed to drag herself out of bed. Gathering up her scattered clothes have got to be the most shameless part about the morning after, but at least she found everything in one piece. 

“There you are!” Haemi heaved a sigh of relief when she found her phone hiding under the bed legs. She pulled the device out to find multiple missed calls from Mina since early morning. Fearing the worst, she eventually returned the call. It only rang once for her friend to pick up.

“Haemi, have you read the article?! Where are you?” Mina showcased deep concern in her shaken voice.

“No..what’s going on?” 

She heard a faint ‘oh god’ over on the other line, followed by a heavy sigh from Mina. The suspense was starting to freak her out now. Haemi swiftly put her friend on speaker mode while switching her phone tab to access the current trending article. 

“A reporter put out an article about Sehun. She somehow got her hands on his father’s personal journal and decided to publicize their relationship. Since he’s a public figure, she was able to give out his name. They’re calling him a murderer’s son…” Mina explained carefully, but Haemi had already beat her to the article. 

There were pictures of a ragged up journal attached to the detailed article, along with a childhood photo taken in front of their home— proving Sehun’s identity. Haemi scrolled down to see the source of these artifacts listed as Oh Junsu’s next of kin. An array of emotions struck her, knowing that her mother may be involved in this whole scheme. 

“Listen to me, it’s best if you don’t get involved right now since your name was not brought up…” Mina advised, there was a small pause in her sentence before she continued, “…I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Sehun rushed down to the underground parking lot, at the same time slipping on a face mask to hide his identity from public eyes. He spotted Bohyun’s parked car at their usual spot with his window rolled down to signal the writer to come over. On cue, he made a run for it while avoiding unnecessary eye contact. 

“Take me to my lawyer,” Sehun ordered, the distress in his eyes showed. 

“It’s useless. We’ve already sued her for false claims, but the items she possessed now are factual evidence— we can’t do anything about it.” Bohyun avoided his employer’s eyes as if he had let him down. Ever since that interview incident, he learned more about Sehun than he had intended to, but in a way that he wish he didn’t. He kept his tongue tied about the writer’s past especially to protect him, little did he know that it would be too late now.

“I’m not like him…” Sehun spoke faintly, his bottom lip quivered as words slowly made their way out of his mouth. “I swear…I’m not like that.”

“You’re not,” Bohyun reassured the younger one. Somewhere behind his employer’s tough facade lies a broken child, too broken to even be pieced back together. What a horrible experience he must have went through, and to have a society blinded by judgment placing Sehun in the same category as his father was just sickening. 

“I know this isn’t good time, but I have to take you back to the company. They’re waiting for you to give them an official statement.”

Hiding wasn’t an option; from this point on, Sehun had to revisit his nightmare-like past to prevent dragging the people around him deeper into his own mess. Bohyun quickly explained their current position, which did not look so great whatsoever. As much as he wanted to be with Sehun to give his statement, the man had other