16

Kyuhyun

Grounded

I kept thinking about her. Although what happened was just this morning, everything went downhill from than. I got grounded by the company and this time the manager couldn’t get me out of it. The manager had visited me this afternoon because he heard about the commotion from this morning. He said I got grounded by the company that basically meant no more schedules and no concerts, but since we had just a couple left I could still do them. But when we returned to Korea in a month I couldn’t do anything for 3 months. 3 months is an awfully long time and the schedule planning started now, so no more interviews, fan meetings, and other stuff. I was told to just stay inside. I didn’t know how the company knew but they did. So that meant also I couldn’t go with the guys this afternoon. My free afternoon would basically be inside my hotel room when the others went out, to have their little one afternoon vacation.

I should’ve punched that Ethan guy in the face. A bit past 3pm Donghae called me.

“Kyu? You there? This isn’t good.” He said.

“Donghae, what are you talking about?”

“It’s Illiana”

“What about her?” I got this annoying feeling something bad happened.

“The paparazzi found her, we’re watching her right now”

“How can you guys watch her, don’t they notice you?”

“We are in the van at the end of the street, I think we need to help her” He sounded worried.
 

“Call Suzy, it’s the only person who can help her. How is she doing?”

“She’s trying to get away, protecting something in her hands from being ruined, she looks worried, scared I can’t tell to many people are surrounding her.” Her portfolio, I remembered. I'd told her I was going to help her fix it. I was so confused all this time, I almost forgot, I should’ve send another member like Zhoumi or someone.
 

“I’m coming over.”
 

“Yah, Kyu-shi, you crazy, you want your fired, stay inside.”
 

“Then what are you calling me for?”
 

“euuuhhh Good Question.” I heard hesitation “OOO god, more people” I heard Henry say.
 

“YAH Donghae-shi get her out of there.”
 

“Ok, Ok alright, I’m calling Suzy” He hung up the phone.
 

​I wished I could be there, too take her hand and tell her that I was a fool to act the way I did. I just realised it too late. I really wanted to go to her and say 'I’m sorry' but I was forbidden to go anywhere and she didn’t have a phone.

My phone rang again, this time it was Henry.

“Hyung, are you there?” He sounded hasty. “Hyung? Hello”
 

“I’m here, so what happened?”
 

“It isn’t good at all”
 

“Henry-yah, what? What is it?” I asked, I was worried something would’ve happened to her.
 

“This isn’t good, are you sitting down?”
 

“Henry, just tell me.”
 

“You are in big trouble, that means we are too”
 

“Are you ever going to tell me what is going on?”
 

“It’s all over the world”

“What is?”

“It has been spread by some guy named Eric. The photos in the photography room, Suzy has sent a message to Donghae, we are on our way back.”

“That’s impossible. We made it disappear.”

“Wait for it, there is more. We searched the net, not only the photos are there, but …” He paused, some kind of whisper discussion in the car.

“Henry?”

“right, sorry, the whole thing is filmed, I mean the interaction with Ethan. You can see how Sungmin and Donghae are deleting pictures, You can see everything, Sungmin and Donghae trying to hold you, You can see how Eunhyukie and Donghae grabbed his arms. Everything” So this is how the company knew of the situation.
 

“Have you found out who this Eric guy is.” Henry wasn’t listening, again a lot of whispers in the car. “Henry, yah, aish, you’re not even hearing what I say.” I murmured through the phone.
 

“Kyuhyun-ah, We found out who Eric is. He is a friend of that Ethan, we are trying to get a hold on him, when we return we need to have talk and not only with the manager, you and the company, but with Illiana too, this is about her past, she needs to know.”
 

“Where are you guys? I’m coming to you”
 

​“YAH, stay in your room, idiot, we’re in the hotel on our way to your room. I’m hanging up.”

Someone was knocking on my hotel room door, probably Henry and Donghae. I opened the door but nor Henry nor Donghae were there, not even a single member of Super Junior, It wasn’t the manager and it wasn’t the rehearsal crew.
 

“Kyuhyun?” I looked in the eyes of a blue-eyed blond-haired ten year old boy. I had to blink a couple of times. He looked alot like his sister, the blond hair, the blue eyes, only Illiana's were a lot intenser.
 

“Lucas?” The little brother of Illiana stood at the other side of my door.
 

“Kyuhyun, my Korean is not so good, don’t be mad at Illiana. It wasn’t her fault.”
 

“Lucas, what are you doing here?” I took him inside. 

“I’m here to tell you, it wasn’t her fault.”

“I know that” the boy’s eyes widened.
 

“Than why didn’t you tell her that? She feels so bad.”
 

“Because I can’t” How could I explain Iwas on look down to a kid. “I want to, but I can’t”
 

“Ok” he shrugged. “I wanna play a game” Was he testing me? Looking out for his sister or something?

"euh, Lucas ....?" I didn't know what to do.

"Let's play a game" He smiled.

A second knock on my door. Henry came in. When Henry looked in my room and saw Lucas.

“Kyu, why do you have a little boy in your room, you know him?” Henry whispered suspiciously. Thinking about it Henry never met Lucas.

“He’s Illiana’s little brother”
 

“OOOOwww” Henry nodded “and what is he doing here exactly?”
 

“He wanted to let me know that it wasn’t his sister’s fault.”
 

“Ooow, oka-ay” Henry stared at the boy.
 

Lucas stood up, “I’ll leave now, you owe me a game” He smiled and waved and he was gone. Strange little fellow.
 

“Henry-shi, I think I know how I got grounded.”

“The company probably knows from the internet.”

“uhu, did you found this Eric guy?”
 

“We know he is alive, but we don’t know where, the video’s and photos were uploaded from a ZERA uni computer.”
 

“And Illiana, how was she?”
 

“She looked bad, worried, sad, something like that. Suzy drove off with her.”
 

“Why didn’t you all get out of that car?”
 

“and make it worse? No, she handled it quite good actually, there were no articles written, not even a mention of her name.”
 

“That’s a good thing and another good thing is that Ethan / Eric never wrote her name. That’s a relieve.”

“They know she has a brother, that’s the bad thing, from the moment they find him and start bothering him, it will be hectic.”

“We will have to protect him, He’s a good kid.” Henry shook his head.

“You’re crazy you know that, what I know is this Ethan has some kind of past with Illiana, I don’t think it’s him personally, but rather something around him. Illiana wasn’t this well behaved teenage girl, Suzy told me. I think we need to look out for what may just have to come. But that’s all we have right now. And I need to leave we have an interview later on, don’t worry we’re telling people you’re sick with the flew and you may only do the concerts there just two left so they believe it.” He shrugged and waved while going away.

Illiana’s brother came to see us almost every day after school. He was a smart little kid and he felt like a younger brother. We played lots of video games and I taught him Korean (formal way) and helped him with his homework. I didn’t know what he told his sister where he was but this, I kind of felt like Illiana wasn’t that far away. My stupid last words were repeating in my head and the hurt look on her face like she was being crushed like an iceberg wasn’t what I wanted to remember of her. I wanted to remember how she laughed (the same smile as her brother), how her eyes sparkled, how she bit on her lip, how her soft lips felt under my fingers, how it gave me a rush just to touch her hand. How she loved playing games. I knew what she did in the past, Lucas told stories about her, not everything but a lot. How they lived in Africa for two years. How sometimes the paparazzi was bothering him when he wanted to do something with his friends. I wished I could protect him like Suzy did with giving him a car and a driver, one time he had people around him like some kind of bodyguards. It was kind of hard to know what this amazing ten year old had to go through, but the love he had for his sister was beautiful.

The month past rather quickly, having Lu around to keep me busy was such relieve. But the last two days of my stay, I didn’t see Lu anymore, he told me he was helping his sister with something. He never revealed what it was. I had to admit I started to miss that ten year old.