Disclaimer: I did not claim anything as my own.

***

The 28th Golden Disk Awards that was held a week later must be the worst nightmare in her life.

Ever.

During rehearsals, where every idols familiarized themselves with the stages, the equipments, and the time-table, making some adjustments here and there, Soojung tried so hard to avoid a certain boy from a certain band. It was a relieve that they’re only shared the same stage during the intro and the end of the event, making it easier for her to hide between the sea of idols who were also attending. She remembered vividly what CEO Kim had said the day before.

“Just so you know Krystal, if only Sulli didn’t have filming schedules, I wouldn’t give you permisson to take part on this. Remember, even if you met him: don’t talk to him, don’t look at him, don’t even spare a glance at him. A lot of people are watching, Krystal, I warned you...”

So she did exactly what she was told.

Fortunately, she didn’t bumped into him during the rehearsals, the red carpet, backstage, even in the hotel—not even once. She had a glimpse of him once or twice, and so did he, but she was an expert at fleeing and hiding herself away as quickly as possible. It went pretty well for almost the whole event, almost, until she couldn’t escape anymore.

It was at the very end of the event, where they would announced the last award and everyone were called out to be present on the stage, she could see him on the far end corner of the stage and her group was called to fill the row right in front of him. Holy crap. The arrangement was not like this during rehearsal; her group was supposed to be called for the few last.

She couldn’t run away now, it would be too obvious. And weird. She held her breath and pretend like she didn’t see him, she even turned her body towards the audience, unlike her unnies who were walking straight and greet everyone in their vicinity.

Don’t talk to him. Don’t look at him. Don’t even spare a glance at him, she could hear CEO Kim’s words repeating in her head. It was driving her nuts.

She could hear Amber unnie greeted him and the boy greeted her back with that warm voice of his. She bit her lip. That should be me. I should be the one who greeted you and received your warm smile, oppa...

She could feel his stare burning a hole behind her head. She was trying to deny the shivers that ran down her body everytime he was near; acting like she didn’t notice him at all eventhough she knew from her peripheral vision that he was trying to approach her. Now he was standing right behind her, and it was getting harder and harder to pretend and control the urge to jump into his arms right here, right now.

Screw everyone elses.

Screw CEO Kim Young Min.

But then she rememberred her sister. She rememberred her manager. She rememberred his band, they would make a comeback after this and she couldn’t possibly ruined all of their hard work. She rememberred her unnies, their group had struggled enough to keep their existence in the industry, another scandal would break them apart for sure. She couldn’t do that to any of them.

Amber unnie was just done greeting all of the CNBLUE members when she nudged Soojung on the elbow; she had acknowledge what Soojung had been doing, but she didn’t like the awkward vibe that came between them. Amber had known the boys long before her, so Soojung complied, bowing to Jonghyun oppa once, then turned her back on them in a flash, ignoring the cold stare that came from Minhyuk oppa towards her.

She kept up with the act until they announced EXO name for the final award. The Shineee oppas came through the crowd to congratulate their maknaes, and Soojung couldn’t help but to laugh at their funny antics towards each other. Boys, she thought. That’s when Minho oppa suddenly greeted her, “Soojung-ah, look at you! Being so small between these people. Can you even see anything?”

Soojung shook her head as her answer, then Minho oppa smiled and patted her shoulder, “Let me help you.”

She didn’t know what did he meant by that, so she was totally surprised when he was suddenly stood behind her and lifted her up. She yelped.

Oh. My. God.

Her lips broke into a smile much due to the surprise, eventhough inside her head she was panicking over what if Minhyuk oppa saw it?!!

Thank God it was only for a split second. He asked her again, “So, did you see everything?”

Smiling shyly, she answered animatedly, “I can see aaalllll the way down to every corner from top to bottom,” her right hand lifted up to describe ‘all’.

“I know, right?”

Soojung realized that all the time Minhyuk oppa was right behind her. Despite the fact that she could feel his eyes digging a deeper hole behind her head, she still hoped that he didn’t see it. But Onew oppa, who had seen everything, confirmed her unwishful suspicion.

“Minho-yah!” Cluelessly, the guy turned his head to the direction where the voice came from. He saw Onew made a gesture to call him over, and he did. “Yah!” Onew scolded him once he was close enough to hear him, “I think Minhyuk was glaring at you.”

“Mwo?”

The clueless guy turned his head again to follow Onew’s line of sight, and there he was, Kang Minhyuk who was trying to act nonchalant towards them. But he was too late. Minho had seen the murderous glare that he had shot both to him and Soojung.

Onew nudged him to approach the obviously bitter guy.

Without further cue, Minho greeted him with that friendly smile of him. If he was feeling uneasy to know that Minhyuk probably misunderstanding his relationship with Soojung, well it didn’t show. That’s just him.

“Minhyuk-ah,” he started, Minhyuk looked a bit surprised that the big eyes guy dared to talk to him like nothing happened, “Look, I hoped you didn’t get me wrong—“

Soojung couldn’t pretend anymore and flipped her head upon hearing what Minho was about to say, but Minhyuk cut him off.

“—you know, I can see everything pretty clear from here,” he said to Minho, imitating Soojung’s hand gesture earlier. His face looked like he was smiling, but Minho knew immediately that he was meant to mock him.

Minho nodded his head, more like of an okay-you’re-mad kind of nod than of an agreement but asked anyway, “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

“Ani...” Minhyuk denied it way too fast, “Why would I be mad at you?”

Minho smiled knowingly and patted Minhyuk’s waist as a gesture of apology, then took a step away from him. He watched him as Minhyuk did the same and purposefully talked to Yonghwa on the other side, like he was avoiding him. Feeling uncomfortable, Minho then dragged his feet even further away and hugged Taemin as an excuse.

Soojung, who had heard everything, bitten her lips. She was staring at her boyfriend who was currently talking to s, but now it did seemed like it’s him who was trying to ignore her, not the other way around.

She realized that he was mad at her.

She was contemplating on giving up the cold act already, but immediately talked herself out of it. She tried to keep her mind out of it by joining a joke with Amber unnie, but his coldness hit her like never before. One of her hand tried to smoothen out the tension on her neck, gosh, she couldn’t get him out of her head, that she didn’t notice Kai was standing in front of her all this time, listening to all of her conversation carefully.

Soojung had to talk to her boyfriend. She needed to talk to him. Keeping the act to ignore him when he was this close—especially after that incident—could make him even more angry at her. She couldn’t take that. She couldn’t take the possibility that Minhyuk oppa wouldn’t talk to her ever again.

A few seconds later, she mustered up every courage that she had and decided to turn her face at him for once. Hesitantly, she whined a bit at him, “Oppa...”

His half-hearted smile that formed immediately after their eyes met was like water in her deserted heart. So warm, so fresh, making her realized how much she actually missed him. She wanted to touch him. She really really wanted to be drawn in his arms and take all of his warmth for herself, and it took a lot of self-control not to just do exactly that.

He tilted his head to ask her ‘what was that’, referring to when Minho lifted her up. Soojung flipped her head to the other direction; honestly, she didn’t know how to answer that question. Then she heard him say something like ‘oerop...ta’ (I’m lonely), and it broke her heart. Me too, oppa... me too... She nodded her head and was just about to say so, but he didn’t see her—he was looking curiously at the Shineee’s members behind them. Feeling dejected, she pouted. This was not the place and the time to have a conversation, she thought. So she didn’t make any attempt to acknowledge him again after that.

She had joked around with Jonghyun oppa who was imitating that silly-head-bang-dance nonstop; she even had a decent conversation with Suho oppa where she congratulated him for their winning. All the while, she wished that this event would come to an end soon just so that she could have some talk with her boyfriend, as soon as possible.

But that need had to be pushed aside once again when EXO’s song played through as a background to celebrate their winning, and as a fellow group under the same agency, she couldn’t left the stage early. She stared at Minhyuk’s back until he disappeared to the backstage, wishing that she could catch up with him later.

Once the song had ended, Soojung could barely hold the urge to run and find him immediately. She rushed in to the backstage down to the waiting room, hoping that he was still in the building. How long had it been since he left the stage? He couldn’t had left to the hotel in 5 minutes, could he?

After looking around for 10 minutes to no avail, she was sure that she had lost him. She didn’t bring her handphone with her, it was on her bag in the waiting room so she tried to peek in to CNBLUE’s waiting room but found that it was empty except for the make-up artists who were just about to finish packing up their equipments. They were looking at her curiously, wondering what she was doing in a boy group’s room, or if she lost her way, when she heard Vic eomma calling her out.

“Soojung-ah!” the eldest member in her group approaching her with worry all over her face, “Where have you been?! Aren’t you going to change your outfit? Yah, we’re going back to the hotel in a minute. Palli!”

But Soojung didn’t listen to her. Instead, she was whining to Victoria with tears b on her eyes, “Eomma~~~ he’s mad at me... I can’t find him... eottoke??!”

Victoria looked puzzled with Soojung’s sudden behaviour, it took her a few seconds to figure out who was it she was talking about, “Is it Minhyuk-ssi?” Soojung nodded her head vigorously in a panic mode, she looked pretty desperate so Victoria tried to calm her down. She rubbed her upper arms repeatedly, “He’s probably on the way to the hotel now. Change your clothes first, then we’re going to catch him later. I’ll ask our manager in what room he was in, okay?”

The younger girl shook her head even more desperately, “No no no no no... please don’t tell manager oppa about this, he’s going to scold me if he knew—“

“—he needed to know, Soojung-ah,” Victoria told her with a stern voice, “If you’re going to continue your relationship with him then you need to at least let our manager know about this. You owe him that. You owe us that. That’s the only way we could help you out and prevent further damage. Arraseo?”

Clearly, Soojung didn’t want to agree to that, she just kept on shaking her head like a spoiled child.

Victoria once again tried to talk her out, “Listen, Soojung-ah. What’s the point on keeping your relationship from us, anyway? Everyone had already known about it. You either come clean about it or I won’t let you met him.”

“Eommaaa~~~” she whined a little bit more after hearing that, but Victoria wouldn’t hear any of it. As a leader, she felt that both of their maknaes were being reckless that she needed to take some action before everything’s going out of control. She didn’t like it either; but it was unavoidable.

“Fine...” Soojung finally relented after seeing that Victoria didn’t budge at all. She was left with no choice since she still needed some help and support from her unnies, or else, she’ll be in a deeper trouble. Victoria smiled encouragingly to hear this, then she rushed her towards their waiting room and proceeded to talk to their manager as she had promised.

Fortunately, her group and his band were staying in the same hotel, so it wasn’t that hard to found out which room he was in. She managed to tune out her manager’s grumble, who was helping her after a lot of ‘convincing’ from her unnies. Once they’ve arrived at the hotel, she dashed out to the elevator that leads to his room.

But even before she reached the elevator, she found him going in to the elevator along with his other members and his manager.

“Oppa!”

The boys clearly had heard her since they were all looking back to see her ran a little bit faster to reach him before the door closed. Minhyuk oppa sported that expressionless look on his face as he saw her, before he coldly press the close button right in front of her face, ignoring the questioning glances the others threw at him.

Soojung found herself freezed for a few moments at the closing door. The cold look on his face as the door closed flashing through her eyes repeatedly, a wake up call that it was real. He was ignoring her. He didn’t want to talk to her. Hell, he didn’t even want to see her. Oh my God, eottoke??!

In the heat of the moment, she pressed the elevetor button furiously and take another one in a rush. Praying that she could catch him just in time before he got into his room and closed the door for her forever. And she did. He was just about to get in after Jungshin, when she called out his name once again.

“Oppa!!!”

He did stopped and looked at her this time. She didn’t care if he did it mostly out of pity, she must’ve been look pretty desperate right now since she was running from the elevator to his room, and she finally could take a long sigh of breathe when she could grab a hold of his arm.

She was still trying to catch her breath as she tried to speak out, “Oppa, we need to talk.”

He released a heavy sigh out of his mouth as he murmured something like ‘obviously’, then without a cue, Jungshin found his way out of the room, opting to share a room with their manager instead. Yonghwa and Jonghyun exchanging worried look with each other, knowing Minhyuk’s past love life, they really hoped this time it wouldn’t affect him as much. However, they believed that Minhyuk wouldn’t need any interference from anyone regarding his relationship, so the older boys got themselves into their room to give the couple some privacy.

Ever the gentleman that he is, Minhyuk let Soojung to get into the room first. The girl complied, releasing her hold on his arm thinking that it would be alright. She waited for him to close the door before she started to speak.

“Oppa—“

“—cut the crap, Soojung-ah,” he cut her off with a tired voice, “I think we both know that we probably should end our relationship for now. It’s not working.”

For the thousand times that week, she felt that her world had crumbling down to ashes.

The last remnants of hope that she was trying so hard to hold on to, gone as fast as he had said those words.

Her worst nightmare had finally come true.

***

A/N:

*duck my head*

Did anyone want to throw rotten tomatoes at me? *runaway*

 

I know, I know, I hate this chapter as much as you do. Probably more, because this chapter was so hard to write I just want to throw it out on the open so I could skip to the next chapter. Some of you had asked me to write something about the GDA moments, so this is what came through my mind and put all the blame to the CEO, muahahahaha. *I still can't believe they kicked Jessica out of SNSD. They could be Divine. They could endure the hardships for one more album, for God's sake, and put on a memorable ending instead of like this. It's a shame, really, but yeah, whatever.* Okay, I'll stop ranting now. Comments like always, puh-leasee?