Chapter 29

Onew awoke with a sudden jerk.

The apartment was frightfully quiet, not at all like all the noise that he was used to hearing within its walls.  He heard the soft sounds of Taemin and Key, still asleep in their beds.  Fabric rustled softly and shifts in breathing patterns stood out against the otherwise still air.

For a moment he was disoriented, not sure why his body had woken him up. 

Then his phone rang. 

He grabbed it and quickly shuffled out of the room before it could wake up the others. 

“Yoboseyo?” he said softly, slipping into the kitchen.

“Hey Jinki,” Lex’s voice came softly on the line.

“You alright?” he asked immediately, trying to figure out the early morning call when she knew he liked to sleep in on the rare occasion that he was allowed.

“I’m fine.” There was a pause, “They ran your piece – it’s front page news.”

Onew didn’t say anything, instead that nervous churning feeling in his gut was back.

He knew that it had needed to be done, it had needed to be said – but for a celebrity he really hated attention.  Most of the attention that he received was shallow.  Just observations of what he knowingly placed out there, without people really trying to dig too deep.  But with this he had opened himself up to a whole host of other inquiries.

But the thought of Lex being hurt again dashed across his mind and his all of his apprehension went away.

He had promised himself that Lex wasn’t going to get hurt again, especially not because she had chosen to spend her time with him.  When he had first confessed to her she had said no, she had been vehemently against it, and yet she had decided to give a relationship with him a try anyway.  He wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing when that was still a possibility that something else could happen.  When they culprits had yet to be caught. 

After the lengthy silence Lex asked, “Do you want me to come over?  You know that this is going to hit the fan today…”

Onew snorted, “And you want to get hit too?”

“No,” she said with a tone that Onew knew meant that she was smiling on her end, “I want to pull you out of the way.  Or at the very least be ready to help you clean up afterwards.”

Onew knew that wasn’t it.  The studio had moved her back into her apartment, which they had finished cleaning and repairing all the damage in.  She still had a body guard with her who was staying in the guest room, but Lex wasn’t comfortable being there now – she wanted to be out of that place, and somewhere she felt safe.

He guessed that he should have felt happy that she felt safe with him. 

“I’ll come and pick you up.” He said softly before hanging up. 

He moved swiftly, throwing on a hoodie over his sleep-clothes and slipping his sockless-feet into a pair of gym shoes piled by the door that may have been his…

He wanted to bring his Lex home.

*****

They settled into the couch, Lex with a slight wince.  They had removed the sling, but her shoulder was still tender and she didn’t try to move it too much yet. 

“Ready?” Onew said bracingly.

“As I’ll ever be.”  She quipped, and Onew the television, ready to face the morning broadcasters together.

It was time to see what the world was saying about them.

“Surprising news from the leader of SHINee this morning.  Onew has spoken out against the aggravated assault of foreign actress Lex Green.  At the same time revealing a romantic relationship with the older woman.  His published op-ed this morning claims that out of control sasaeng fans discovered their relationship and they are the ones responsible for breaking into the actress’ house and causing her injury.  The Seoul Metropolitan Police Department cooberates the story.  As of this morning we have been unable to reach Ms. Green for comment, though she is still recovering.”

“Oh?” Lex appeared startled and patted around her pockets before pulling out her phone.  “Oh geez – 24 missed calls…” She shuffled through them mumbling to Onew that she, “put my phone on silent this morning after I called you.”

She put everything and speaker phone and the couple listened to the messages for a while, working their way through the different production studios all asking for the same thing – comment. 

“Can I just say ‘ditto?’” She smiled up at Onew, “Would that work?”

Onew laughed, pulling her closer to him on the couch and letting her head tuck into his shoulder.

“I say go for it – at least it makes me laugh.”

The voice had come from the hallway behind them, Jonghyun was awake and quickly plopped down on the floor in front of the couch that Onew and Lex were huddled on. 

“That one didn’t sound too bad.” He added, settling himself into a comfortable position. 

“It didn’t sound good either – that was just straight reporting.”  Onew pointed out.

He flipped the channel.  It took a few minutes but eventually the newscaster brought up the topic of SHINee.

“It appears that the We Got Married! show may actually lead to a legitimate coupling.  The pairing between SHINee’s leader Onew and American actress Lex Green appears to be igniting off camera as well.  The singer announced his relationship this morning.”

And then the topic moved off to something else.

They stared dumbfounded at the screen, including Key who had come in at some point and sat down next to Lex on the couch.

“Seriously?” He yelled at the screen, “Everything in that column and you go the gossip route – ‘oh, look at what celebrities are dating!’” he mocked in a falsetto that was surprisingly accurate to the woman behind the news desk. 

“Hyung?” Taemin sleepy voice filtered down the hallway.

He walked out, followed closely by Minho who had also been awoken by Key’s exclamation. 

Seeing Lex, Taemin seemed suddenly awake.  He bounced up and down before settling next to Jonghyun on the floor, sitting just in front of Lex and turned around to face her rather than the TV.

“How you feeling noona?”

Lex smiled, seeming unable to fight the contagious happiness of one Lee Taemin.  “I’m good Tae, much better.  Look!  No sling!” and she held up her arm gingerly to prove it. 

“Good,” he cheered as Key grabbed the remote from Onew and flipped the channel again, while a sleepy Minho wandered off to the kitchen to try and find something to wake him up. 

“Once again the topic of sasaeng fans is raising its ugly head.” This broadcaster began.  Onew sat forward and perked up his ears, the newscaster sounded – tired, and empathetic.  “Finally sasaeng fans have crossed the line and have not only violated someone’s home, as they have been doing for years, but they have actually physically harmed the person whose home they had invaded.  Actress Lex Green was found by members of SHINee who had gone to her home to check on her when she was late for work.  She had been beaten and her home vandalized.”

“Someone did their research…” Minho said softly, startling the group who had been focused on the broadcast and hadn’t heard him return from the kitchen.  “What?!” he cried defensively as every eye turned to him, “This isn’t just re-hashing hyung’s article, this is someone who actually looked into the situation, who found the police reports.  No one else knows that Jonghyun-hyung and Taeminnie found her.”

“She did not know her attackers but had seen them before – fans of Onew who haunted the filming sets of their reality show.  Apparently the fans were enraged to discover that the relationship the two portrayed on screen wasn’t as fake as they had thought.”

The news anchor sighed and put down the papers that had been clutched in his hands.  He folded his hands on top of them and stared directly into the camera.

“I’ve been reporting at this desk for 10 years.  Over that time I have seen a lot of things.  I have watched this ‘sasaeng phenomena’ grow in severity, alarming me at the levels that these wretched people would stoop to in order to make the object of their affections recognize them.  People continually brushed this off as ‘just sasaengs’ but the problem was growing.  I can’t say that I am surprised that it finally boiled over into something like this, that they actually harmed another person who was attached to their idol of choice.  Onew had it right – sasaeng fans are stalkers.  It is about time that the police stop brushing it off and actually do something about it.  Ms. Green may have been lucky – what if the next person isn’t?”

The anchor heaved yet another sigh before slipping the top paper onto the bottom of his stack and moving on to the next one. 

“What channel is this?” Lex asked suddenly, “Because it is totally my news station now.”

The group laughed and the tense atmosphere was broken.