When I woke up, everything hurt ten times worse than the night before. I opened my eyes and saw cereal and orange juice on my bedside table, but I was distracted by the yelling coming from the living room, and the room beside mine, which was Sul Hee’s. I didn’t know who to check on first, or if I should just leave them be until it’s over.

            I was about to listen to my iPod when I heard Jonghyun’s voice yelling in the living room. I immediately got up and went into the living room where SeoYoung and Onew were yelling at Jonghyun.

            “We’re not dating! I swear to god, hyung! She’s like my sister, I was just trying to comfort her because she was scared and she needed someone!” Jonghyun yelled in defense to himself.

            “That still doesn’t explain what you were crying with her!” Onew yelled back. I’d never seen Onew look so agitated, yelling at Jonghyun like that. Jonghyun then saw me standing in the hallway and Onew and SeoYoung turned around to look at me as well.

            “Minji, there’s cereal in your room for you,” SeoYoung said, quietly.

            “Onew, Jjong and I aren’t dating. I’m sure whoever gets to date him will be the luckiest girl in the world, but I don’t think Jonghyun would date me if he was paid a million won,” I said, turning around and leaving before I was forced to lie anymore. I went back into my room where I cried more.

            About five minutes later, I heard my bedroom door open and close, and then someone walked over to my bed and laid down beside me. I didn’t even have to look up to know it was Jonghyun.

            “You didn’t eat any of your cereal,” he said, my hair.

            “Where is everyone?” I asked, my face still buried in my pillow so he couldn’t tell that I’d been crying again.

            “Key, Taemin, and Minho went home an hour ago, about the same time you fell asleep, and me and Onew stayed here to help SeoYoung clean up a bit, and then we started fighting. I believe Eun Hee and Jinhee are pretending to sleep while actually listening to our conversation in the living room, and Sul Hee is fighting with ShinYoung over the phone.”

            When I heard ShinYoung, I immediately flinched and started crying again. My tears were silent this time, so Jonghyun still couldn’t tell that I was or had been crying.

            “C’mon, look at me, babe,” he said, grabbing my shoulder. “I need to talk to you, but I can’t if you don’t look at me.”

            “What do you need to talk to me about?” I asked, still not looking at him.

            “Us.”

            I immediately then shot my head up and looked at him with concerned eyes. “Jjong, please don’t say what I think you’re going to say.”

            “I know it’s only been a couple of days, but I don’t think I can do this. It’s difficult for both of us to keep secrets from our band mates, and I don’t want to hurt you even more than you already are,” he explained with hurt in his voice.

            “No, Jjong... please,” I begged, wiping furiously at my eyes so I wouldn’t start crying again. “I know we can do this, please just give it a chance.” I never thought I would be the one sitting here begging for him not to leave me, but that’s how it turned out. I had him, and I didn’t want to let him go.

            “We can still be friends, Minji,” he said, putting my hair behind my ear. “We can still talk, but only as friends. There isn’t that much of a change.” He smiled a small, yet sad smile and kissed my cheek. “I’m going to go home now. Text me if you need anything.” He gave me a tight hug before getting up and leaving me.

            I don’t know how long I cried. All I had been doing for the whole day was cry and cry some more. I thought I was stronger than this, but Kim Jonghyun somehow managed to make me weak and crumble at his feet. “We can still be friends” became the worst sentence I could ever hear anyone say, and I suddenly felt lonely. There’s pieces in the band that are now broken, and I don’t know how to fix anything.

“Minji, please let me in,” SeoYoung begged once again. I’ve been in my room for two days now. I locked my door and refused to eat anything. The cereal is still on my bedside table, all soggy and gross-looking, and the orange juice is warm and hasn’t moved from its position from two days ago.

            “Ok, I’ve had enough of this,” Jinhee said, fiddling with my handle. Within a few seconds my door was unlocked and SeoYoung was staring at Jinhee in disbelief.

            “You could’ve done that I don’t know, like two days ago!” SeoYoung said, hitting the back of Jinhee’s head before coming over to me and sitting on the end of my bed. “Minji, you missed our performance last night. Everyone is wondering where you were and manager Lee is angry.”

            “That makes me feel a whole lot better,” I muttered, staring at the wall of my room. I had a horrible headache and I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.

            “Don’t worry, we told him that you had strep throat and you couldn’t perform but you can’t have strep throat forever, Minji. What’s wrong? We can help you,” SeoYoung attempted to comfort me.

            I wanted Jonghyun back. I wanted him to be my boyfriend and I wanted him to love me. I wanted to forget about ShinYoung and have him out of Sul Hee’s life before he hurt anyone important to me. There were so many things I wanted that they couldn’t help me with. “I’m fine,” was all I could say.

            “Well you’re clearly not fine. You’re hurt and depressed and you need something,” SeoYoung protested. She never saw through anyone’s lies, because she was great at telling apart a lie from the truth. I was afraid to ask her if she could tell that I was lying yesterday.

            “Is Sul Hee ok?” I asked.

            “Yes, she’s fine. She broke up with ShinYoung a few days ago and it doesn’t seem to be bothering her anymore. She’s worried about you too, Minji. We’re all worried about you.”

            “What about Eun Hee? Was she ok with Key that night?”

            “Yes, everything was fine. Her and Key were even joking around a bit. Also, manager Lee was talking about us not doing the collaboration with SHINee, but with EXO instead. Since EXO’s comeback is very soon, he said that we can add a track to their album. That’s exciting!” SeoYoung tried boosting my mood, but I still wanted to do the song with SHINee so I could see Jonghyun.

            “What about Jinhee? Did she have a good time before everything went downhill?” I was mostly concerned about everyone else because I didn’t want to think about my problems, and I didn’t want to be bringing anyone down with me.

            “Yes, Minji. She had a great time. Now please come out of your room so you can get some sunlight and so people won’t think you’re dead,” SeoYoung said with a small laugh.

            I sighed. “Ok.”

I was trying my best not to think of you know who or you know who. I was distracting myself by exercising, listening to music, and practicing my singing and dancing for whatever performance we had to do next.

            For some reason we started getting an unusual amount of fan muffin baskets so that they were practically piled in places all over the kitchen and living room. SeoYoung wanted to throw them away, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Fans put money and effort into those baskets, and I wanted to appreciate them.

            There was a knock on the door and I was expecting another muffin basket, but instead there was a mail man carrying a wagon full of boxes of chocolates and bouquets of flowers.

            “Is there a card?” I asked, laughing a bit as I looked around the wagon.

            “No card and no return address. Sorry ma’am,” the mail man said, handing me the handle to the wagon and a clip board with a paper for me to sign. It was weird because the stuff was just addressed to me and no one else.

            After bringing the wagon into the apartment and examining it a bit, I noticed one simple note that said “good luck, Minji.” I had no idea what they were wishing me luck on, but I liked it anyways.

            “Looks like Minji has a secret admirer,” SeoYoung teased.

            “I think it’s just a fan,” I said, looking at a box of latte mix at the bottom of the wagon. I guess my love for lattes had gotten out somehow.

            “I don’t think a fan would address a full wagon of stuff just for you, but you believe whatever you want. We have to go to rehearsals now but maybe when we get back you’ll have some more things to share with us from your secret admirer.”

At the TV set, all of us met up with a bunch of producers and directors, but we definitely weren’t expecting SHINee to be there as well.

            “Apparently Jonghyun oppa begged the producers to let SHINee perform on the show as well, instead of the other way around,” one of the employees whispered to me after noticing me staring at Jonghyun from across the room.

            I looked at her in disbelief. “Are you serious?” I asked, looking back at Jonghyun.

            “I am completely serious. He even told the producers that he would pay them to come on this show. Of course, they couldn’t turn down an offer for SHINee to perform, so here they are! We had to get rid of TRAX because of them.”

            I never thought I’d see the day when SHINee would kick off another SM artist just to perform on this show. It was just so unlike them to do anything like that.

            “Thank you,” I said before going over to Jinhee. “Did you hear?” I whispered to her.

            “Hear what? That Jonghyun practically got on his knees and begged to perform on here with us?” Jinhee asked with a laugh.

            “Yeah. What’s with that?” I asked, hoping she could help me figure something out here.

            “Obviously he couldn’t stand being away from you and he misses you,” Jinhee said as if it were so obvious. Maybe it was obvious and I was just the only one that didn’t see it because he told me that he just wanted to be my friend.

            “I don’t think that’s it. Maybe it’s because SHINee is losing money or something.” Hey, it was worth a try. There had to be more than one possibility with people like SHINee.

            “Yeah... you keep thinking that,” Jinhee said before walking away.

            I looked over to Jonghyun and noticed that he was looking at me. He smiled when my eyes caught his but I quickly looked away and went to go distract myself with something else.

            Before I knew it, there was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw Jonghyun, with a nervous smile on his face. “Did you get my gifts?”

Well, it looks like I addressed a lot in the chapter XD

I'm having a "sick" day today so I'll be doing a lot of writing (and watching Sherlock) xD

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