May 2015

Klaire's heart was beating uncontrollably. She never really appreciated how there were always managers by her side, driving her from one place to another. She was honestly annoyed that she could never really be alone before. So during this hiatus, it was the perfect moment to ask for more freedom. Klaire recently bought her very first car and had been driving herself ever since.

After she was pulled into an unfamiliar vehicle, she quickly realized that she wasn't in any real danger, only that the thought alone scared her. The fact that she, or any of her members, could be so easily abducted by any creeps or crazy fans terrified her. She heard Jessica apologized profusely for forcefully yanking her into the car and slightly hurting her still injured shoulder in the process.

“You do know this is called kidnapping, right?” Klaire said after she composed herself. But before she could get any response, the third person in the car cleared his throat, asking for attention.

“Ahjussi!” Klaire was too preoccupied with the feeling of being kidnapped for the first time, and hopefully the only time in her life, she almost didn’t realize someone else was in the car despite the car was moving and the said person was responsible for driving it.

“Klaire-ssi, it’s so great to see you again.” Uncle Jung greeted, giving her signature fatherly laugh.

The middle-age man was Jessica’s family driver who had been working for the Jungs for quite some time now. Jessica's mother hired him mostly for when she and her husband visit South Korea, but since Jessica and Krystal bought their own house, Uncle Jung started working full time for them. Make no mistake, he was not related to the family, they just simply shared the same last name.

Uncle Jung was just a few months away from his retirement age. He has been working as a chauffeur for almost 40 years, but today was definitely the most exciting day in his career.

The adventure started when the Jessica openly told him that they would be stalking someone that day. When the plan didn’t go as expected, Uncle Jung was sent to this certain Private Healthcare Centre to seek for information. He then found out that their target had a little change of schedule and passed the piece of information back to Jessica. The Ice Princess then kindly invited him to an early dinner at an expensive Korean restaurant in town to kill time. Later on, they went back to the place and parked the car at a safe distance from the location. They waited for about twenty minutes before the target showed herself and the mission was executed successfully when they managed to grab her from the side of the street.

Klaire and the driver were still exchanging small talks when he stopped the car near a quiet park that Klaire frequently passed by to her psychiatry appoinment. The park was usually crowded with mothers and children during the day, but there was nobody there at night. Following the instruction Jessica gave him earlier, Uncle Jung excused himself for a smoke nearby and leaving the two ladies to talk privately inside the car.

“I don’t know what you’re planning here, but I just wanna go home.” Klaire said, her hand ready to open the car door.

“Ten minutes!” Jessica called out. “Give me ten minutes. And after that, if that’s what you want, I’ll be out of your life.”

Klaire stayed still. Contemplating if she was going to listen to what Jessica had to say or calling Uncle Jung to drive her back to her car.

“I can only imagine how annoying it was being ignored for so long. And I know it isn’t fair that I’m forcing you to talk to me this way.” Jessica began speaking before Klaire could make up her mind “But.. I just need a chance to explain things.”

Klaire saw that Uncle Jung had just lit up his cigarette, it wouldn’t be fair to ask him to throw the fresh stick away. Talk about unfairness, Klaire wondered why she wasn’t smart enough to kidnap Jessica during those times she was ignored. How easy life would be if she could casually force her power upon everyone just like this Ice Princess in front of her. “You have nine minutes and thirty seconds before I call Jungmin oppa to come get me. Or worse, the police.” She tried to threaten.

Jessica promptly taking out her phone and showing it to Klaire, not wanting to waste any precious time, “Remember all those messages you sent me? I think it’s about time you get the replies.”

Klaire looked at her, figuring what that meant and few seconds later being totally horrified with the idea. “Hell, no!”

“Excuse me?” Jessica said, confused.

She exhaled, “Listen, I was drinking most of the time when I sent you those things. You don’t need to answer them. Those are just stupid messages sent by a stupid girl in stupid situations.”

As a performer, Klaire had stood on stage in front of thousands of people countless times. It wasn’t a rare thing for her to screw up once in a while. She had tripped herself and fallen on stage a couple of times, her voice cracked when she tried to hit the high notes, wardrobe malfunction happened, her ridiculous expression was caught when she sneezed on screen, so on and so forth. There were tons o