CONTINUATION OF PREVIOUS CHAPTER

“Well, things are really tense at the moment,” Leeteuk began.

“Gee, what a surprise,” Kyuhyun rolled his eyes. “Why not tell them something they actually don’t know yet, hyung?”

Leeteuk reached over and hit Kyuhyun on the head. “I’m getting there, you brat! Besides, they know it’s tense in the company right now, but they don’t know how much, because, like what Jaejoong just said, the staff are meant to act cool and indifferent when DBSK is around. SM can’t afford to show them any weakness.”

Then, he turned to look at the DBSK members again, “Things are getting really serious in there, guys. I’ve heard whispered rumors yesterday. The people at the top are even more pissed about the situation because the fans are also starting to take action.”

“The fans? Take action?” Junsu repeated, confused.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Yunho frowned, looking worried about their fans. He didn’t want them getting involved in their troubles, too, I suppose.

“Oh, have the fans started signing petitions to get the boys away from SM?” I asked suddenly.

They all turned to stare at me.

“How do you know that?” Leeteuk asked, giving me a weird look.

“Erm…” I stuttered. “Uh… a fansite? Yeah, a fansite. Uh, I’ve been monitoring a few fansites to keep up with updates on how fans are taking and reacting to the lawsuit issue,” I made up quickly.

“Hmm…” Leeteuk seemed mollified by that, but he still kept giving me an odd look.

“So, is that what the fans are doing, then?” Jaejoong frowned at Leeteuk. “Collecting signatures to show how much people disapprove of us being stuck in SM and its crappy treatment of its idols?”

“That’s what I’ve heard in the gossip trails in SM, yes,” Leeteuk nodded.

“And knowing how the gossip works in our company, it’s probably pretty accurate,” Changmin agreed.

“How much can those signatures actually do, though?” Junsu asked. “How much will those influence SM on how it handles the lawsuit battle against us?”

“Well, it would prove that SM has a hell lot of people to answer to for messing with you, for one thing,” I pointed out. “And I’m pretty sure the numbers would be pretty daunting.”

“She’s right,” Leeteuk nodded. “And it’s a good thing, because if the fans’ demands get to be so strong, they’ll have to give in. Or at the very least reach some compromise. They can’t risk angering the fans, especially not in numbers like that. Fans are where SM’s profits mainly come from, after all.”

“Yeah, and we know how much importance SM gives to money,” Yoochun muttered darkly.

“Lighten up,” Junsu told him. “At least it’s to our advantage this time, if that’s the case.”

“Not really. SM’s want for money is also the main reason that they’re so unwilling to let you guys go. You’re Dong Bang Shin Ki. You’re one of their greatest sources of profits, so you can bet that they’re going to give a huge fight to be able to keep you in their hands,” Heechul pointed out.

“Thanks for the comforting thought,” Jaejoong said sarcastically.

For once, Heechul didn’t snap back and engaged Jaejoong into a catfight. “I’m serious, Jaejoong. That’s how it really is. You have to see how much they gain from your group. It would tell you that the fight they’ll do in the lawsuit would be no laughing matter. It’s going to be bloody, so goddamn bloody, princess, you mark my words.”

It was a while before any of my boys could respond.

“We know that,” Yunho said quietly, but his eyes were full of determination. “We know we’re going to facing one hell of a battle with SM.”

“And you’ll still continue with it?” Leeteuk just had to ask again, it seemed.

Without hesitation, the boys all nodded, the determination in their leader’s eyes before now clearly seen in the eyes of all the members as well.

Man, I’m proud of them, I thought with a smile

“It’s been a tough battle, and yes, it would get even tougher as the lawsuit goes on- don’t think we don’t know that. But it’ll be worth it. When we’re free from the clutches of SM, all of this will be worth it,” Yoochun said firmly.

“But what are you going to do when you leave SM, though?” Kyuhyun asked suddenly.

Now that question caught the boys off-guard.

They looked at each other, but no one was really able to answer. We’ve just been focusing on the lawsuit and getting the boys away from the clutches of their company, but we’ve never really discussed what they would do afterwards.

“We haven’t really gotten that far yet in our plans,” Jaejoong admitted a bit sheepishly after a while.

We lapsed into silence.

“We could join another company?” Yoochun suggested eventually.

“Gah, no way!” I immediately disagreed strongly without thinking. “That happened in my time and we don’t exactly think it was the best thing to have happened!”

“What do you mean it happened in your time?” Heechul asked, picking up the key words in my slip-up right away.

“Er…” I stared at Heechul with big, wide eyes, biting the inside of my cheek as I realized my slip.

Merlin, not again!, I groaned in my head, cursing myself.

“Uh… uh…”

“It’s just an expression,” Yoochun quickly supplied for me.

“Yeah, you know. Weird English expressions,” Junsu agreed, nodding his head enthusiastically. Too enthusiastically.

“Or we could also say that she’s just weird that way,” Changmin said, leaning forward towards the Super Junior members and widening his eyes as he nodded “seriously”.

I glared at him. I’m not sure if that’s supposed to help cover-up my slip, or if he’s just taking the opportunity to insult me further.

Probably the latter.

I’ll have to remember to get back at him for this.

Leeteuk frowned at me. “You knew before that I was hiding something and called me out on it. But it seems like you’re hiding something from us as well.” Then, he looked at the members of DBSK. “And it also seems like you guys are in on whatever that thing is.”

We glanced nervously at each other.

“It’s our personal business,” Yunho said quietly after a couple minutes of tensed silence.

“If we’re going to be helping you, we need to know the important details,” Heechul said quietly, as he also looked at me carefully, questioningly.

“It’s not important for our issue right now-“ Yoochun started to say, but Leeteuk cut him off.

“She knows things, Yoochun. Things that I can’t tell how she’s even supposed to know in the first place. And I’m not talking about how she figured out I was hiding something; there can be signs on a person to tell that much. But she knew about the move of the fans, and I don’t believe that she got the information from fansites. She also seemed to know for sure that transferring to another company wouldn’t be the best move for you guys. How does she know that?” Leeteuk asked out loud in general, though he never once removed his eyes from me.

I guess he’s also quite perceptive, then.

God, how am I going to get out of this one? Am I even going to get out of this one?

“You wouldn’t believe it even if we told you the truth,” Yoochun muttered, looking away from the Super Junior members.

“Try us,” Leeteuk said shortly.

“And risk making you think that we’ve really lost it? You probably already thought that we were mad when we filed the lawsuit. If we told you the truth about her, you’d probably have us in straightjackets and carted off into a mental institution,” Jaejoong said bluntly.

“That bad?” Heechul raised an eyebrow.

“Worse.”

“I know!” Kyuhyun suddenly exclaimed, staring at me with wide eyes. “I know!”

“What do you know?” I asked quickly. He couldn’t have just suddenly guessed that I was from the future, could he?

“It’s like what you said a while ago, hyung!” he said, looking briefly at Leeteuk before going back to staring at me. “She is a know-it-all psychic!”

That had all of us staring and gaping at him instead. Leeteuk reached over again to hit him on his head.

“Ow!”

“Don’t be stupid!”

“But that’s the only reason possible! Think about it! She knew that DBSK going to another company would be a bad move! That’s the future! She knows the future! She’s a psychic!”

Okay, so Kyuhyun wasn’t totally off the mark with those points.

Leeteuk was about to hit again for continuing with his ‘crazy’ speculations, but then he noticed how uncomfortable the boys and I were. His fist froze in mid-punch and he stared at me with wide, disbelieving eyes, too.

“You’re a psychic?” Heechul gasped dramatically, also noticing the expressions on our faces and guessing that there was truth in Kyuhyun’s speculations.

“She’s not,” Changmin said firmly, his whole body tensed and seemingly ready to leap into action.

“Come off it!” Kyuhyun said, turning to his best friend. “You can’t deny she knows stuff that’s just supposed to happen in the future!”

“We’re not denying that,” I said quietly. Well, I said it quietly, but it got all their attention anyway. “I’m not denying that.”

The Super Junior members’ eyes widened even more.

“Erin, I don’t think-“ Junsu began, warning clear in his troubled eyes.

“It’s okay, oppa,” I interrupted him. “Like what they said, if they’re going to be helping you, they need to know the important stuff.”

“So, you’re admitting that you’re a psychic, then? That’s how you know these things? You can see the future?” Kyuhyun asked eagerly.

Though for the life of me I couldn’t see why he was so eager about it. I mean, what was he expecting, if I really was a psychic? That I’d read his palms for him and do fortune-telling? Heck, no way.

“I can’t see the future exactly…” I said slowly.

“How do you know future stuff, then?” he asked testily.

“I know future stuff because… I’m from the future.”

You could practically hear crickets because of the silence caused by my words.

God, telling it to DBSK before was bad enough! Now, here I am again, repeating the whole horrible experience!

“You’re nuts!” Heechul suddenly blurted out. “And I mean way more nuts than the usual nuts! ‘Cause I’m nuts as well, but I’m not that nuts!”

The boys and I rolled our eyes at Heechul and his reaction.

“We told you you’d take it that way,” Yoochun reminded him, shaking his head.

“You guys actually believe her?” Leeteuk demanded at the five members.

“Well, it’s true-“ Junsu started to say.

“Why are you taking her seriously?” Leeteuk asked, turning to Yunho.

“You’d take her seriously too if she’d told you that your group splits up in the future,” Jaejoong said flatly, answering Leeteuk’s question for Yunho.

The Super Junior members were left gaping again.

“W-what?!” Kyuhyun yelped when he found his voice again. “Y-you guys split up?!”

“That’s preposterous!” Heechul shook his head. “I know it’s weird, but I find it easier to believe that Erin’s from the future than to entertain the possibility that Dong Bang Shin Ki breaks up, even if it’s in another time or, heck, even in another dimension, while we’re at it!”

“Ugh, we’re getting nowhere,” I groaned, rubbing my temples tiredly. “Hear me out, first, okay? Maybe this would help clear out some of your questions...”

And I started explaining everything to them, everything about my mission. With help from the boys, of course.

By the time we were finished, Leeteuk, Heeehcul, and Kyuhyun were all slack-jawed at all the information that we’ve just sprung on them.

“Prove it!” Leeteuk suddenly said, a wild look in his eyes as he turned to me. “Prove it!”

“Get your laptop, Erin,” Yunho instructed me quietly.

As I left the room to go upstairs, I heard Heechul ask, “What’s with her laptop?”

“You’ll see…”

I returned to the living room with my laptop.

“Your last performance again?” I asked solemnly.

Because you just can’t help but be solemn when it comes to that particular video.

Yunho nodded, looking pained.

After I had played the video for the three Super Junior members, they were all staring the same the boys also had the first time they saw that video.

“That was- that was-“ Kyuhyun tried to say.

“The most horrible thing you ever had to watch in your life?” Changmin suggested quietly.

Kyuhyun nodded stiffly. “Y-yeah. And it wasn’t even my group I had to watch ‘perform’ like that…”

“Well, I guess that proves you’re from the future. The video is obviously genuine and yet I know for a fact that they haven’t done that performance yet…” Heechul said, looking at me as though he’d never seen anyone like me. Which, to be fair, is true, seeing as I’m probably the first person he’s met that has time-travelled.

Leeteuk, however, had other concerns. “Why were they like that?” he asked me urgently, pointing back to the screen with his finger.

“You mean why did they look like they’ve been through hell in the video?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Leeteuk nodded.

“Well, what do you think, oppa? How would you guys look if you knew that a particular performance would possibly be your last performance as a whole group? And, most unfortunately, it really had been the last performance for DBSK as five then…”

Leeteuk just shook his head. “No, I refuse to believe it. While it does prove that you’re from the future, that doesn’t prove that they really did split up…”

I frowned at him for a minute.

“What?” he asked eventually, unnerved by the look I was giving him.

“You asked for it,” I said quietly, before going over to play a few more videos. Videos that the five boys themselves haven’t even seen yet. Videos of clips regarding the lawsuit. Videos of JYJ performances. Videos of TVXQ concerts where the only members on stage were Homin.

“No. Bloody. Way,” Kyuhyun said, shaking his head, his eyes still glued to the empty screen after videos ended.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, oppas,” I said quietly and anxiously to the DBSK members, who were all white-faced and trembling. “I didn’t really want you to see those, but Leeteuk oppa insisted-“

“H-hey, don’t blame that on me,” Leeteuk protested, though he did it in a weak way, still shocked from what he had seen.

“Well, you asked for proof!” I snapped.

“It really happens. It really happens,” Kyuhyun kept repeating. “Blimey.”

“It happened,” I corrected firmly.

The three Super Junior members stared at me in confusion.

“What-?”

“It happened in my time. It’s not going to happen again now. That’s why I’m here. And things are already changing. All five of them together have done lawsuit battle this time around, for one thing,” I explained.

“Well, at least you guys have a chance to change your future now,” Kyuhyun said quietly, nodding in agreement with my words, offering a smile at the members of DBSK. “You won’t have to go through that separation.”

“Yeah,” Yunho said, starting to smile again as well. “That’s why I’m goddamn glad Erin got sent back here to help us.” He managed to grin at me.

“Just a few days ago you’re yelling at her that you wished she was never sent back here,” Junsu teased, effectively lightening the situation.

“What?” Heechul asked, effectively distracted from the news of the future and now raising his eyebrows at Yunho and smirking a bit. “The always-so-polite Jung Yunho yelled such cruel words to a lady?”

“I was upset,” Yunho defended himself, looking nervous as Jaejoong and Changmin glared at him again at Junsu’s reminder of how badly he had behaved towards me.

“I’ll say. You must have been really goddamn upset, then, to act like that,” Leeteuk frowned.

“You can say that again,” Junsu nodded. “But seeing as it was because Lee Soo Man was blackmailing him, I guess you can say he had good reason to be upset.”

“Junsu!” Jaejoong hissed as the Super Junior members looked at Yunho in surprised.

“Oops.”

“He blackmailed you? With what?” Leeteuk immediately demanded.

God, we keep going from discussing one concern to another. Merlin, we just have so many problems and complications, don’t we?

“Never mind,” Changmin tried to cover-up hurriedly, as this one was really classified information, especially since it concerned matters regarding Yunho's father's company. “We managed to work around that, anyway. And we’ve managed to turn it into something to use against Lee Soo Man.”

“Really? How?” Heechul asked interestedly.

“Our lawyers are working on it,” was all that Yoochun said shortly. “Rest assured, though, that Lee Soo Man won’t get away with what he’s done.”

Nobody spoke for a while, letting those words sink into them. Especially the Super Juniors who’ve just heard that their president was basically going down.

“Why do you have to leave SM, then?” Kyuhyun asked suddenly.

“Didn’t we already go through this a while ago?” Yoochun frowned at him.

“I know that, hyung, but… well, why do you have to go? Just kick Lee Soo Man off, then, since you’ve apparently discovered the he’s been up to for years. Without that old bastard in-charge, things will get better in the compa