A/N: pretty short chapter. Enjoy!

Chapter 6: A Maknae’s Tears

Seohyun couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned in the king-sized bed, trying to organize her thoughts rather than relax to drift off peacefully.

She wanted to know more about how her and Yonghwa’s relationship, more about their daughter, more about their careers, and more about her members and friends. She wanted to know how the woman on the phone could do something as cruel as sending them into the future, and why them of all people. She wanted to know how to work her stupid cellphone that looked more like a cell than an actual phone. Mostly, she wanted to know what had happened to Hyoyeon.

She couldn’t image that her unnie would do something so terrible for her name to be unspeakable. Hyoyeon had always been a person who had her future so set Seohyun had misunderstood her so many times. Hyoyeon had always talked about how many kids she wanted to have, what kind of husband she wanted to marry, where she wanted to live and with who, and how she wanted the rest of her career to play out. Lately, she had been slightly distant from the other members, but she would never just leave the group. She loved the members, and they loved her.

Another hour went by until Seohyun couldn’t take it anymore. She needed to find out. She got out of bed, slid into her slippers, and crossed the room. She crept along the hallway and saw Yonghwa squeezed onto the couch, looking uncomfortable but nonetheless sleep.

She had been embarrassed about the “private” track on his computer, yet it was one more thing that had kept her up thinking. How often did they make love in their marriage? What did it feel like? Was their marriage really that adventurous and playful? She could never reveal these thoughts to him. It was best to put them out of mind and focus on how to get home.

She slide past him quietly and headed to the studio. There was his laptop computer.

She searched “Seohyun and Yonghwa” first, out of curiosity, and found a hundreds of pictures of them together, some taken by fans and paparazzi, others of their wedding day and photoshoots, and music videos that they had done together. There were fansites too that tracked their marriage, and Seohyun was happy to find out that there were minimal pictures of Yunji floating around.

Seohyun watched some of the videos, looked at most of the pictures, and read the articles and interviews. They looked extremely happy and in love. Sure enough, they were known as the Nation’s Couple. It was so convincing that even Seohyun was starting to swoon over her own couple.

An online article posted only hours ago read “Yongseo’s Enchanting Speech”. Naturally, she clicked on it.

Yongseo’s cute mistakes onstage caught the attention of fans at today’s concert, but both parties put on a spectacular show both with their separate groups and with each other. The powerful love ballad, “What’s Real”, swept the entire audience away in Yongseo’s romance. The performance became more interesting when Yonghwa (CNBlue) )and Seohyun (So Nyuh Shi Dae)began reciting a speech about their marriage and saying hello to their daughter watching the concert at home. Netizens commented on the broadcasting site “I wish I could have a love as deep as theirs”, “Yunji Baby must be so proud of her omma and appa”, and “Awh, their speech was perfect. It makes me want to get married too”.

It made Seohyun snicker. She would remind herself to show it to Yonghwa in the morning, unless by some wonderful miracle she would wake up back where she belong and this whole into-the-future thing was one big bad experience.

“Ok, Juhyun. Now we find out the truth,” she said to herself.

She took a few deep breaths and searched “Hyoyeon”.

***

Yonghwa had to pee.

He sat up on the couch and looked around the dark living room. His own face watched him from the photos with Seohyun. He shook off the thin blanket, slid into his slippers and headed toward the guest bathroom. The studio light was on, but when he peaked in, no one was there. He shut off the light and opened up the door to the bathroom.

Seohyun was crying on the floor, fat tears streaking her face. Her knees were pulled up to her chest as her chest rose and fell with every shaky breath. She looked up at him like a lost child too afraid to move.

He closed the door behind him not wanting to wake up Yunji. “Seohyun, what’s wrong?”

Seohyun had trouble finding her voice. “She’s gone. She was kicked out. Unnie was kicked out.”

“Who? Hyoyeon-sshi? What happened?” He sat down next to her on the floor.

“There was a pregnancy scandal. The company wanted her to get rid of it, but she refused, so they kicked her out. They shamed her,” she told him in between breaths, then broke out into sobs again.

Yonghwa scooted closer and hesitated before reaching out to tuck her hair behind her ear and wipe her cheek with his thumb. She let him.

“Where is she now?”

“No one knows. Everyone looked at me like I was a heretic when I said her name today. Oppa, this is all my fault.”

“No, it’s not, Seohyun-ah,” he said soothingly. He couldn’t image the condemnation Hyoyeon had probably gone through when the scandal had occurred. There was no doubt in his mind that the entire country had turned their back on her, and had turned their backs on SNSD for a period of time as well. Scandals, false ones, could already turn an idol’s life upside down. When scandals were actually real, it not only turned lives upside down but ruined them for good.

“She made a choice. A brave choice,” he continued. “She had to have known what would happen.”

“Why would she do that? Why would she just throw away everything like that? She had time to be a mother and get married. I tell her that all the time. Why didn’t she listen to me?”

He didn’t respond, just kept letting her talk and cry while he wiped away her tears.

“I could’ve stopped her. It happened with that guy she’s dating right now, the guy I told her not to go see last night, before we woke up here. The story says she wouldn’t reveal who the father was, which means he didn’t marry her. She’s on her own. Oppa, I could’ve stopped her. That woman on the phone, she knew what would happen, and she teased me about it.”

“The woman on the phone deserves a thousand years worth of suffering. And if she ever calls back, I’ll tell her that.”

Seohyun cracked a small smile and sniffled. “We can’t even figure out how to work our phones.”

Yonghwa chuckled lightly. “I know. That might actually satisfy her even more.”

Seohyun’s smile grew wider, a couple more tears falling. She looked at him, feeling thankful that he was there to comfort her.

“We’ll figure things out, Seohyun. I promise,” he assured her, massaging her shoulder.  “We might even wake up tomorrow morning, back in our real beds, like I said. But if we don’t, I’ll protect us and make sure we do one day.”

“Oppa, I have to find her. I have to make sure she’s ok.”

“Come on,” he helped her off the floor, and swung her arm over his shoulder to help her back to the bedroom. “You need some rest. Today was too much to handle without rest.”

She sniffled as she allowed him to lead her back to the room. He tried to imagine how he would react if one of his dongsangs had created a scandal, which ended up in CNBlue’s shunning. He tried to put himself in Seohyun’s shoes but could not. He could see himself angry beyond belief, shouting at them, maybe even throwing some punches, but pregnancy was an entirely different story. He was shocked that SNSD would still even be allowed to perform and receive any sort of love.

Once in the bedroom, Yonghwa tucked her into bed and sat beside her as he had done with Yunji. She blinked slowly at him a few times before closing her eyes and whispering, “Oppa…”

“Go to sleep, Seohyun-ah. Relax and go to sleep,” he whispered back, placing his hand over hers, and began to hum a calming tune. She didn’t pull away.

He watched her last tear fall onto the pillow as she settled and finally fell asleep. He continued to hum softly so that it might find its way in her dreams and the pain and guilt wouldn’t follow her there.

He hummed until he too drifted off, his hand still over hers.

A/N: This will be the last update for the rest of this week and next week since I’ll be pretty busy. But like I always say, there's so much more left of the story. Thank you for reading, subscribing, and commenting!! You guys are the best, and I hope you continue to enjoy my story!