---

Months have passed since Taeyang’s debut performance and as expected, Dara’s popularity climbed its all time high. At the apex of this newfound fame was nothing but ridicule and excessive defamation of every picture of Dara surfacing in the internet. Though not intended, the kiss had caused a semi-national distress.

 

The path towards the YG building became a battleground, and the VIPs were the mighty warriors. On one side there were the ‘Sundara’ shippers as they like to call themselves, while the on other side were the ‘loyal’ Taeyang supporters, as they would also like to call themselves. The agency couldn’t do much, reprimanding the young girls—and boys— only lasted for a few days. They kept on returning and increasing in fan base.

 

Dara, the center of this whole ‘controversy,’ has been physically, mentally and emotionally drained with her sudden rise to fame. Aside from being constantly bombarded with death threats and congratulations by her confusing anti-fan and fan base, the girl has been running on barely five hours of sleep a day.

 

At first she found the experience of performing onstage every week, even if she was only a featured dancer, mesmerizing. The girls in the 2ne1 dorm couldn’t hear enough of Dara saying that she wanted to perform her entire life. Then the weeks dragged on, commercial endorsements piled up, offers on television dramas and movies poured in and now she is dubbed in the agency as the invisible ajumma—invisible because she was rarely around due to her schedules, ajumma because whenever she was around, she sported gruffy, thoughtless mix of apparels.

 

“What time is Dara returning from her commercial shoot again?” Teddy recalled, swiveling his chair to face the other 2ne1 group members who were sitting at the sofa in his studio. “Around 11:30?”

 

“Deh.” CL replied, looking at her watch. It was only 10 in the morning, and everyone except Dara was done with their part of the recording of the few songs Teddy introduced to them that day.

 

“Ahh-ahh, it almost seems like she’s busier than Young Bae.” Teddy commented, fiddling with a handy stress ball someone has intelligently thought of including in the interior design of the room. It has, by far, been the second most used furniture in the entire studio, right after Teddy’s synthesizer. “Jiyong’s eye for fame is daebak. Did you know that he thought of pairing Dara with Taeyang in the music video?”

 

“Really?!” Bom asked curiously, her eyes widening at the revelation. GD did seem to be the type to think of such concept, although his cold façade and naturally angry disposition towards Dara made it impossible for Bom to fathom GD thinking of Dara as a lead girl for Taeyang’s song about needing a girl. “Wasn’t he always mad at Darong?”

 

“Well believe it or not,” Teddy started, and the girls huddled closer to listen attentively. He paused, unsure if he should be divulging his next words. “… you girls have to promise never to tell Jiyong about this if you want me alive for your debut.”

 

“Omo, oppa! What is it about?” Minzy asked inquisitively, her eyes hungry for gossip.

-----

Flashback

 

“You coming?” Teddy called GD who was drawing hurricanes on his notebook yet again.

 

There was a flu outbreak in metro Korea. Everywhere people went there would always be one person carrying the flu. Unfortunately, YG’s president Yang Hyun Suk was among those unlucky many. To make matters worse, he was supposed to attend his agency’s annual audition. Unable to function for the day, he assigned in his stead his two most trusted ears to listen in the audition and spot potential talents.

 

“Oh, is it time already?” Jiyong asked, looking at the wall clock. Four hours in and he’s written nothing but hurricanes and tornadoes on his notebook. Frustrated, he neatly placed it beside the computer before he stood up and headed towards the recording studio's door.

 

“Seriously, this cold outbreak is killin’ it. Just saw Daesung yesterday and he was fine but jeez today he looked like a dying seal.” Teddy said as they walked to the elevator. “G?”

 

GD was staring at point blank, deep in thought. It’s been days and still no lyrics. He had never taken this long to write songs.

 

-----

 

They went over to the audition room, where the representative YG vocal trainer and dance instructor were already seated. After making their greetings, Teddy and GD sat beside the two staff and started the auditions.

 

The first girl to come in was pale skinned with straight black hair and dark eyes. She was wearing a simple white t-shirt with a bunny print, dark pants and sneakers. “Good afternoon, my name is Sandara Park.” She bowed timidly, but from her eyes one could see how excited she was for the audition.

 

“Stuffed voice, she’s definitely got the cold.” Teddy whispered to Jiyong upon hearing Dara’s voice. Jiyong nodded in recognition.

 

“Alright, Sandara Park. Says here you are from the Philippines?” the vocal coach asked.

 

“Ah yes, that’s true. I spent some time living in the…” Dara paused, unable to control herself from coughing. “…Philippines.”

 

“So you are fluent in the language?” she followed up.

 

“I think I’m well-versed but I’m bad at pronouncing the words.” Dara said humbly.

 

“Can you sing a Filipino song for us?” she asked playfully, knowing fully that Dara was going to burn to ashes with her current voice.

 

“Okay. I’ll be singing my favorite Filipino song,” Dara agreed, trying to look cheerful but obviously sickly.

 

“It’s horrible.” Jiyong thought as Dara started singing the foreign song. “I can’t hear her voice properly. Her cold is overpowering her real voice. She should have at least done a Korean song to ease up on her disadvantage. No one will want to hire her after this performance.”

 

“Thank you, that’s enough.” the vocal coach concluded, not even allowing Dara to finish the song. The coach motioned for the guard to let in the next applicant.

 

“Wait!” Dara exclaimed, knowing that the performance could have possibly ruined her chances of ever becoming a singer. “Can I sing another song?”

 

“I think we’ve heard enough.” The vocal coach replied.

 

“Nah, I think we should let her.” Teddy persuaded. Dara sang another song in Filipino.

 

“She’s really terrible at this.” GD mentally noted, pulling a piece of tissue from his pocket and started to write some well awaited lyrics.

-----

 

“I’m telling you, I think that’s where he wrote ‘I need a girl’!” Teddy continued, earning raised eye brows from the girls.

 

“What kind of crappy story is this?!” Minzy remarked, stretching her feet on the ground. “I don’t even think it’s true!”

 

“What?!” Teddy asked, shocked at the girls’ disbelief in him.

 

“How could he have written I need a girl from that scene?  He didn’t even make kimchi fried rice for Dara unnie to taste!” Minzy argued, referring to one part of the "I Need A Girl' song. “So your story is that after days of not writing lyrics, Jiyong oppa was able to write one during unnie’s audition? And that she was his inspiration for "I Need a Girl?"”

 

“Kids these days,” Teddy shook his head. “Well he couldn’t have written “a girl who at auditions but has a great fighting spirit” in the song, right? Of course he had to do metaphors! And didn’t the lyrics say “a kind of girl who looks better in jeans than a shirt”? Well isn’t that Dara’s attire all the time?”

 

“Oppa, everyone wears jeans around here…” CL said, although she tried not to break poor Teddy’s argument. “Even Bom unnie wears ‘em a lot.”

 

“Well how about “make me write sweet songs again,” huh? Tell me, was it a coincidence that GD writes a song for the first time after so long, only after seeing Dara’s performance? And now he’s using those lyrics to portray the girl Taeyang needs?” Teddy was now pathetically trying to string the words together to save his pride from being destroyed by the girls.

 

“Oppa, if I were given a corn for every song I’d write, I could probably write tons of them. “ Bom said.

 

 

-----

 

Dara hiccupped.

 

A lot of times that hour in fact.

 

“I think the fans are bashing me like crazy.” Dara said to herself as she hiccupped some more. She had just finished filming for her very first cosmetics commercial, and was headed to the agency to finish recording some of the songs in 2ne1’s debut album. However, as she drove, about five taxis inched towards her car, trapping her in the middle.

 

Inside these taxis were teenage girls, as Dara observed from their uniform attire. They all started pulling down their windows and throwing different types of groceries—ranging from toilet paper to tomatoes to eggs— towards Dara’s car. Some of the items thrown made their way to the windshield, startling Dara, making her car swerve.

 

“OMO!” Dara panicked, trying to get hold of the car. Even as she operated the wipers to clean the windshield, the girls threw more poultry, almost completely blinding Dara from seeing the road. 

 

Dara’s phone started to ring. At a time like that when the probability of crashing her car on the street was up to 90 percent, she made the crazy decision of answering the phone call. “Hello?”

 

“Noona, you seem to have company.” Taeyang said calmly, yet again, over the phone. “There’s a left turn a few meters away from you. Turn when I give you the signal.”

 

“A-arrassou!” Dara answered, gripping the wheel for dear life.

 

“Now.” Taeyang said firmly, sending the blindly obedient Dara over to a one way overpass. However, the speeding taxis were still able to catch up to Dara’s sides. The girls were screaming violently now, throwing red paint on the sides of Dara’s car. “Oh, that’s going to be hard to remove.”

 

“Not helping, Young bae!” Dara screamed at the phone, putting it on speakerphone and letting it fly to the passenger’s seat. “Ottoke!”

 

“Don’t worry;” were Taeyang’s first words.

 

How could she not worry when rabid teenage girls were throwing paint on her car, and when there was a giant mass of egg yolk hindering her eyes from seeing anything on the road?

 

“Try to wipe as much as you can, you’ll need to see where you’re going.”

 

“Anything more insightful?!” Dara asked desperately, fearing that in the next few seconds she might be ‘rolling in the deep’ with the rest of the taxis.

 

“Once we get off the overpass, you can turn left to Teddy hyung’s café and park there.” Taeyang advised; though with Dara’s visibility and the lingering fan girls from who knows where, that was hardly an option. “I’m a bit far from you but I’ll try to distract them. You just make sure you don’t fall off before we reach the end of the overpass.”

 

“I can’t! They keep on throwing paint at me! I need to shake them off.” Dara explained.

 

Was this what GD meant by harmless VIPs? No way, these weren’t normal VIPs. These were ssassaeng fans.

 

“Noona! You’re going to fall over! Swerve to the right!” For the first time, Taeyang raised his voice terrifyingly, and Dara instantly knew she must have been on the brink of falling. Quickly she drove her car to the right, unexpectedly hitting one of the taxis which pushed her back to the edge of the overpass accidentally. She could feel the friction coming from the railways of the overpass on her left side, and of the taxi on her right.

 

“Sh!*.” Taeyang swore (surprisingly). From behind the taxis, he could see some girls violently coercing their drivers to push Dara’s car further to the edge. With their sheer numbers-- four girls and one driver in each taxi – the five taxis slowly merged direction, aiming at Dara’s car. “Noona, they’re going to try to push you to the edge. Hold on.”

 

Before one of the taxis could hit Dara’s car again, a familiar white Bentley zoomed past Taeyang and hit it forward, away from Dara’s damaged car. After doing so, the Bentley pushed the others farther to the right, making enough room for Dara to drive back to her lane. The taxis seemed to already fear the cost of repairing one of those cars that they drove farther, away from view, before anyone could record their license plates.

 

“Oh man!” Taeyang screamed at the sight of the dented white Bentley, which was now speeding away from the scene, shocking Dara.

 

“What happened?! What’s going on?” the still visually impaired Dara shot questions at Taeyang.

 

Taeyang sighed, silently mourning for the damaged car. “It’s nothing noona. We’re heading the end of the overpass, can you see a little now? Park at Teddy hyung’s café. Let’s meet there.”

-----

 

As soon as Dara stepped out of the Range Rover her knees quivered, perhaps due to adrenalin draining out of her body, or the sheer joy of just being alive after her very first car chase. In any case, it was going to be a long time before she was driving again.

 

“W-where did they go?” Dara stuttered, still panting at the series of events.

 

“I’m sorry noona, they got away. And I was so focused on your car that I wasn’t able to get their license plate numbers.” Taeyang explained helplessly as he patted Dara’s shoulder. He lent her his hand and said, “Let’s go inside before any other fan tries to stab you with a tree branch or something.”

 

“Thanks, Young bae.” Dara gratefully said, reaching out for Taeyang’s hand and slowly standing up. “I don’t know how I would have survived that by myself!”

 

“Nah, I can’t take credit for that.” Taeyang uttered, opening the café door. He and Dara went inside and sat in one table.

 

“You are being TOO humble!” Dara was back to her old self again. “If you hadn’t called me, I wouldn’t even have made it to the overpass!”

 

“Yeah, but it was Jiyong who told me where to take you.” Taeyang said admittedly, stopping Dara for a second. “In fact it was Jiyong who told me there were suspicious taxis heading your way. He told me to keep an eye out for you, and that in case it was necessary,  we should just drive over to Teddy hyung’ café because it would be the safest place.”

 

“R-really?” Dara couldn’t believe it. She was waiting for more confirmation from Taeyang.

 

“Didn’t you see his Bentley when you were being chased?” Taeyang asked with a little pang on his heart upon remembering the wreckage.

 

“He owns a BENTLEY?” Dara’s jaw dropped, forgetting the awkwardness of realizing the GD was responsible for saving her.

 

“He owned a Bentley, now.”

-----

 

Flashback

 

Jiyong was staring at Sandara, the trainwreck that she was at the moment. As he stared, his hand was scribbling aimlessly, fleeting words making their way from his head to the tissue he used as paper.

 

Unintentionally, I look at the ground like

I flutter so much at your three lettered name baby

 

Butterfly by G-dragon

 

[Song reference: Butterfly by G-dragon]

 

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[A/N: It's kind of a Daragon chapter, meant to develop their characters in the story. I think it's necessary, although it takes us away from the main plot involving Bom and TOP. How'd you find it? Thank you for subscribing! Leave a comment and let me know what you think of this chapter :D]