“Damn it!” I yelled loudly through the living room.

“Yeah, thought you might want to read that,” Bom said as she took a step back after haven given me the magazine.

Another picture, another horrifying nickname and another scandalous story. Yup, TOP and I had taken over the cover once again.

“It’s a cute picture though,” Minzy said, who sat next to me, reading the article with me.

I forced a smile. “Thanks,” I managed to purse out of my lips.

Minzy inspected the article and frowned. “Did he really whisper that to you?” She asked pointing at a sentence that stood underneath a picture of TOP whispering something into my ear.

My eyes opened wide and I quickly shook my head. “No,” I said awkwardly. “He did not say anything even remotely close to that,”

Minzy nodded and sighed letting herself fall back in to the couch.  “Why are they allowed to date, and we only just now received cell phones,”

Even though this quite sad sentence of Minzy, sort of worked as a pep talk for me – I should be happy, being able to date especially with a celebrity – but then again I was too focused on my own worrying thoughts to bother feeling pepped by it.

“I think I should contact Ji Yong,” I mumbled to myself.

Minzy popped up and I saw Bom’s eyes widen. I looked at Bom and frowned as she was making faces and shaking her head like crazy.

“G-Dragon-oppa?” Minzy asked bewildered. “Why contact him?”

Still watching Bom with a confused expression I started explaining. “Because we had been a-” Bom tried to say something to me by mouthing the words. I narrowed my eyes and tried to understand what she tried to tell me.

She doesn’t know.

My eyes opened wide and I immediately closed my mouth. She didn’t know G-Dragon and I were a couple? I looked at Minzy and saw she eyed me curiously. But… How? All the gossip magazines were filled with the stories, weren’t they? I mean, the paparazzi had noticed G-Dragon visiting me all the time in the hotel back then, didn’t they publish it? I swallowed hard.

“We had been close friends,” I nodded and smiled, proud of my own lie. Well sort of lie.

Bom nodded as well. “Yes, they were,” Bom covered. “Very close friends,”

“And I think he deserves to know that I’m back, right?” I stood up and got my cell phone out of my pocket. Minzy just watched me with a blank expression. She didn’t fully believe this, you could tell, but that didn’t matter ‘cause I had already made my way out of there. I didn’t know, how the world had not found out about us, but didn’t really mind at the moment.

The phone rang a few times.

Come on. Pick up, pick up, pick up… I said to myself restlessly.

“Yeah?”

“Ah,” A relieved sigh came out of me. “This is ___,”

There was no answer at the other side of the phone, but I just ignored this and continued my story.

“Please tell me you haven’t seen the magazines yet,”

“Actually,” I heard him grab something, something made out of paper. I assumed it was a gossip magazine and bit on my lip, expecting something. I’m not sure what, but I expected something to happen. “I have one right here,”

“I-I’m sorry, I did not-” I started but he immediately cut me off.

“Sorry?” I heard him laugh, but it sounded genuine. “What is there to be sorry for?” I blinked a couple of times.

“I-I just thought-”

“No need to worry, ___,” I swallowed hard as I heard him say my name. It sounded, different. “I’ll be fine,” Someone said something in the background. “Oh, I got to go, bye ___,”

“Bye,” I said quickly and then I heard a beep. The beep that the other person had hung up. I lowered my phone and felt… Empty. G-Dragon had sounded so, weird and different. I had never heard him speak like that, the tone in his voice had changed. It was still cheerful and happy, at least it sounded that way. But something was different.

I felt my heart rate drop as I figured it out.

He sounded distant.