Chapter 13

“Oh, hello, I didn’t expect you here.” I quickly got up and bowed.

He signed for me to sit down again.

Oh, God, why is he here? But that question was too obvious: It was his company.

“So, it’s been a busy week, but I still hope you’ve been… working hard.”

He said the last part with a tone that indicated that he definitely did not mean my official work.

“Actually… I think I’ve made good progress. I…”

How could I talk about this? Even after actually getting permission from Jaejoong, I still didn’t want to sell him out like that.

The boss looked at me expectantly.

Ok, Shinae, just get it over with!

“I think we’re almost there. He seems to care a lot about me.”

He seemed satisfied and smiled.

“Of course he does, you’re a lovely girl. I heard about that thing after the concert. Great job! When he tells you officially, you come to me right away, okay? Don’t worry, this will all be over soon and your new position waits for you.”

He inclined his head as a goodbye and left.

I realized that I’d held my breath and let it out in a big sigh.

Just a short time, then this will be over. I was so tired of this all. I deeply regretted being part of this all. The boys didn’t deserve to be deceived like this, especially Jaejoong. I was just happy that they’d accepted and forgiven me.

Well, except Yunho.

He still hadn’t talked to me, personally, since he’d left that evening.

And then there was Seunghyun. It seemed like no one else was missing him, which I found a little odd, but still. I tried calling him again, to no avail.

“Shinae!” a woman’s voice called behind me.

I turned around and sure enough, it was Jungah, my co-worker in the media department.

After we greeted I couldn’t withhold my curiosity.

“How’d you manage to find out about this place? Our department never gets invited.”

It was true, there was never enough room at a party for a whole company, so they only invited those directly involved in the organization, which didn’t include the media department.”

“Well, I told the desk lady that I urgently needed to find you and she said you’d probably be here at the party.”

She grinned mischievously and was clearly satisfied with herself.

We spent the rest of the night talking. It felt so good to talk with her again, not just because I liked her a lot, but also because she was a woman. I hadn’t realized how exhausting it was to spend all of my time with guys.

“But… where are they? Can you maybe introduce us, huh?” she asked and winked to tell me she wasn’t serious.

But it made me think that I hadn’t checked on them for quite a while. I looked around and couldn’t find them.

“Speaking of which, I’d better find them, it’s getting late.”

After saying goodbye to Jungah, I walked around the room, which was still quite full, but couldn’t find a single member of those “Five Gods”.

I figured that it was pointless to look around everywhere, so I started to look for someone who might know where they were. And I found.

“Eunhyuk-sshi, do you know where Junsu is?”

The idol looked a bit surprised that I was talking to him but recovered fast.

“Well, I saw him half an hour ago going upstairs, but I haven’t seen him since.”

“Ah, thank you.”

I was just about to turn around when Eunhyuk started to speak again.

“Shinae, I don’t know if you… I…”

He looked lost and embarrassed but I didn’t really understand why. Just when I wanted to ask, did Kangin appear behind him and pushed him towards me.

“This idiot wants to dance with you” said Kangin.

I looked at Eunhyuk, who was looking at his shoes, only to glimpse at my face for one moment before he looked back down.

Oh, I thought. I hadn’t expected that. He’d been nice to me, nicer than the other artists, but I had thought that that was just his personality. Guess I was wrong.

“Well” I said, “I guess Junsu can wait three minutes, huh?”

He looked up and was grinning like a schoolboy.

I didn’t exactly know why I’d said yes, though I have to admit that I liked being liked.

It felt like an eternity since someone had blushed when he asked me out to dance or had been this happy when I’d said yes.

It was just a dance, after all.

And a good one. As soon as he started to dance he was another person. He was as confident as he was on stage and was also so funny that I had to stop dancing to laugh.

Then, Jaejoong came out of the blue, grabbing my arm so hard I could only follow where he walked. He stormed out of the restaurant hall and kept walking until we were outside on the parking lot.

“What do you think you’re doing, huh? You can’t just grab me, this is not some drama, ok? I’m a person, too!”

“Do you know what you’re doing? You’re –“

“Yes, I know what I was doing. I was dancing and that is none of your business, okay?”

“Even if it jeopardizes all that you’ve worked for? If people start to think he – “

“Stop it. First, it’s not he, it’s Eunhyuk and secondly, it’s just a dance. And you know what? It doesn’t matter what everybody thinks, all that matters is that the boss believes me, ok? He just needs to believe that you’re really into me and he’ll be satisfied. He told me once you tell me that you love me, it’ll all be over. So, can you please just shut up and – “

Before I could finish my sentence, he grabbed me by the shoulders, pulled me closer and kissed me.

Then he pulled away again and looked at me with contempt.

“There, tell him I did that and told you some cheesy love clarification. Then we’re done and we can all go back to the way our life had been before.”

He gave me a last look and then strode away.

Empty. My head was empty. Wow. I took a deep breath and let it out again. Okay.

Had he really just kissed me? And had he really just done that to put an end to this whole story? Because he wanted to get rid of me?

He’d said so, but why do it? He could just have told me to tell the boss that he’d confessed. Why the kiss? And why is he suddenly so angry with me? He hadn’t before. Was it because of the exhaustion?

I realized that I was still staring after him, although he’d already disappeared into the night.

This will be something I’ll have to deal with tomorrow.

-----------------------------

A/N So the next chapter will be from another Point of view. Can you guess who it will be?