October 29th 2014

‘Where did the scars even come from? They look ugly. He should have plastic surgery to try and hide them, an idol shouldn’t look so hideous.’

‘That Chinese guy in Acid Teochii thinks he looks so cool with those scars on his face, in reality they make him look disgusting.’

‘Why would ACE let someone who looks so monstrous into their company? It’s bad for their image, not to mention the group as a whole.’

‘I wonder how many people he’s given nightmares with that disfigured face.’

Hyo had known from the start that his facial scars would take his image one of two ways. He’d either be praised for unconventional looks while his fans defended him fearlessly from the haters who picked on the scars, become known as the face of the group, where his unusual looks would be thought of when Acid Teochii was mentioned… or he’d be teased, berated and ripped apart for them, mocked endlessly and have people ruthlessly call him names. He’d been hoping that it wouldn’t have been the latter, especially after he entered training and everyone, the Chinese trainees especially, were so nice about his scars.

So after the hate started a week or so after their debut, Hyo tried to take it in his pride. He held his head up high, telling himself that none of it really mattered, their opinions on him were a minority and didn’t matter… that was until those opinions on him were no longer a minority. Almost every comment he saw made about him was about the scars on his face, whether questioning, trying to pry into his personal life or mocking his appearance.

He smiled through it, or at least tried to. He did his best to comfort Cho through her insecurities with the interview over 4 months ago, insecurities which still attacked her when she went out in public, but brushed his own insecurities away whenever anyone asked.

Marco had found several threads that anti-fans had made about Hyo, and had spoken to the blonde several times about them. Whether it was telling him to talk to Namjoon to try and get the forum threads removed somehow, or it was a talk trying to boost his confidence about his face, Hyo tended to ignore his boyfriend and tell him over and over that he was fine, that it wasn’t bothering him in the slightest.

But just like with what happened with Cho, all it took was an interview to tear Hyo down from the false confidence he had given himself.

The interview itself had gone fine, the host had been respectful and polite while keeping the interview fun and interesting. It was more for an online article than for the television, so the group weren’t really bothered about looking stunning for it. All they were really doing was a group interview with a journalist then individual interviews afterwards.

Hyo had gotten the usual questions about his training, whether he’d had much trouble with learning Korean, how well he’d gotten on with the Korean trainees, if he found that the Chinese trainees formed their own bonds with being outcasts… then they’d gone onto debut questions such as who he got on best with in Acid Teochii, were there any major problems between members, if he got on with everyone, asking who cooked the food in the dorm and who shared a room with who. Everything had been going fine until the journalist had asked about Hyo’s scars.

“So, Hyo, your unconventional look is a hot topic online. Everyone has been dying to know how exactly you got those scars on your face? Are you planning on getting plastic surgery to try and hide them?”

Hyo’s polite, pasted smile had faded a fraction as he gritted his teeth. He had known he’d get questions about it eventually. “I don’t wish to talk about how they happened; I don’t feel as though that subject is important. My scars have nothing to do with my career or personality; therefore I also don’t plan on having any surgery. I hope you understand and we are able to change the subject now.”

The journalist has smiled politely and continued. After the interview, Namjoon had approached Hyo, telling the young Chinese boy that he’d handled the situation very maturely and that he was proud of him. Hyo had felt calmer about the situation after hearing that his manager believed he’d done the right thing.

He’d gone back to the dorm in high spirits, even attempting to act civil with Sherlock while they sat in the dorm, savouring their break. Jin was still being quite quiet; he’d only arrived back from China the previous day, the 28th, after looking after his family for a few days and attending his grandfather’s funeral. It was now his birthday, and although Hyo had prepared a gift for his fellow Chinese member, Jin had asked them all not to make a big deal of his birthday, he just wasn’t really feeling the celebratory spirits less than a week after his grandfather’s passing.

The end to Hyo’s happiness came less than 6 hours after they’d returned to the dorm after the scheduled interviews. Most of the group were on the couch, cuddled under blankets with mugs of hot chocolate, courtesy of Hanni, having a Disney movie marathon. Namjoon told them it was a reward for doing so well recently, but they all knew it was really because Disney movies were Jin’s favourite things in the world. The marathon was their celebration. However, the only member of the group not sat on the couch, nursing a steaming mug and belting along with the Disney songs, was Myung.

Their leader was sat at the dining table with a laptop, a frown marring his face as he typed furiously. Hyo glanced at their obviously stressed leader, wiggling his way out of where he was squished between Marco and Jin and placing his mug down as he walked over. “Myung-ah, are you okay?” He asked, frowning slightly as the blue headed boy jumped. It appeared he hadn’t even noticed Hyo’s approach.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine hyung, no need to worry. It’s just…the interviews from this morning went up.”

“And..?” Hyo prompted, a coil of dread beginning to tighten in his stomach.

“And I have to get in contact with Manager-hyung.” Myung replied, quickly standing and moving away from the laptop while pulling out his phone, dialing in a few numbers then placing it to his ear.

“Manager-hyung, it’s the interview. It went up and it isn’t good. It isn’t good at all. Namjoon-hyung I don’t know what to do… no, they’ve completely twisted Hyo’s words, the internet is freaking out. The news sites have gotten hold of the article already. It’s only been up 5 minutes yet every time I check there are more comments, more articles about it. Hyung help, I don’t know what to do!”

Hyo however, hearing Myung’s words, had quickly taken his leader’s place in front of the laptop. In front of him was the interview that had been posted.

‘Lastly, we interviewed Lee Hyo, the Chinese lead dancer from the fast growing Rookie group that we had the pleasure of coming into the studio today. However, Mr Lee Hyo was not as we expected him. Although every member was polite and respectful to our staff, Lee Hyo was cold and rude. He scoffed at every question asked to him while treating our journalist quite cruelly. While our journalist kept profession while continuing with the interview, she came to the question that enquired about the said idol’s facial scars. When he heard the question, he became colder, very rudely stating that he was not inclined to answer the question while calling our journalist a variety of cruel names before storming out of the set. Due to this problem we had, we will not be publishing this part of the interview.’

Hyo’s heart pounded wildly in his chest. None of what he’d read had made sense. He went over the beginning of the day, trying to remember when he had been rude or cold, but couldn’t recall a time in which he had. Gulping a little, Hyo scrolled down the page to the comments.

‘He shouldn’t be in Acid Teochii anyway. He’s only a dancer, worthless to the group.’

‘Stupid Chinese member, how dare he be rude like that. He thinks he’s better than everyone else because he isn’t Korean.’

‘I never liked him, I knew he was a nasty piece of work.’

‘He was the bottom of my bias list either way, but if he’s going to be rude like this, he shouldn’t be in an idol group.’

‘Wow, what a horrible person. I get he’s self conscious but he doesn’t have to be so horrible to people enquiring about it.’

‘Rude and ugly, you have yourself a difficult one there, Myung! LOL!’

‘Maybe he got the scars from someone finally deciding they weren’t dealing with his anymore.’

“Hyo,” A worried voice called while a hand was placed on his shoulder. “Come away from the laptop, Namjoon-hyung is on his way. He’ll sort this all out, don’t worry.” Marco tried to pull him out of the chair, but Hyo dug his heels into the carpet while gripping the table, refusing to move from the spot while clicking off the webpage. Typing his name into the search bar, Hyo’s eyes widened at the amount of news pages that came up, all having been updated within the past 10 minutes. Every single one of them was reporting on his suspected rude behaviour, reporting on the internet’s reaction to the news. Comments being made on the fact he was acting this way because of his nationality, comments being made on how he’d always been rude and ungrateful.

By this point, the entirety of Acid Teochii had crowded around the table, Myung rapidly explaining to them what had happened while Marco continued trying to get Hyo away from the computer. It took only seconds from Hyo to switch from a state of shock to breaking down in tears.

“Marco, get off me!” He suddenly shouted, spinning to shove Marco off him while he stood abruptly, knocking the dining chair he’d been sitting on over. “All of you get away from me! I’m done!” Hyo choked slightly on his words, his slightly broken Korean hard to understand through his sobs and tears. “I’m done! This is over! I’m not doing it anymore!”

Marco had tears in his own eyes as he slowly approached his distraught boyfriend. “Hyo, calm down, Manager-hyung is on his way, he’ll sort this out. They shouldn’t have posted that about you, it shouldn’t have been posted at all yet. They’re meant to go over everything they’re going to say with Manager-hyung before they post it and they haven’t. Come on Hyo, please, calm down.” He reached out towards Hyo’s face, relaxing a little when the blonde didn’t shove him away, and placed both hands up on his face before placing a light kiss on his cheek, trying to ignore the salty tears on his lips. “Come on, it’s okay.”

“No it’s not,” Hyo hiccupped, leaning down and resting his forehead on Marco’s, his still blonde bangs mixing with Marco’s bubblegum pink ones. “I’m done, I don’t want to be here. I want to go home, I’m done. The internet has seen it, it’ll be broadcasted everywhere. It’s too late to change now, I want to go home.”

Marco just let out a small sigh while rubbing his hands up and down Hyo’s back, trying to calm the other’s frantic sobs. The group surrounding them were trapped in a stunned silence, unable to comprehend words to say while watching Hyo’s breakdown.

Finally, Hyo’s sobs slowed to a stop, his head now resting on Marco’s shoulder, his breaths slow and steady while his long, loose blonde hair hid his teary face from the rest of the members. Slowly picking up his head, Hyo took a deep breath. “I’m done. I quit.”

He pulled away from Marco and into the bedroom he shared with his boyfriend and Jin, grabbing a suitcase from under his bed and beginning to throw items of clothing into the bottom of it. Only seconds later, Marco had realised Hyo’s words and had run after him, joining him in the bedroom. “W-what do you mean you quit?! You can’t leave, Hyo-hyung!”

“I have to, Marco-ah. I can’t do this anymore.”

“W-where will you go? What about the group? What about Antidote? What about me?!” Marco’s tears were coming faster now as he grabbed onto Hyo’s hands, trying desperately to stop him from packing the suitcase.

“I’m going back to my apartment in Beijing. I can be with my family again. Acid will be fine without me, you’ll all live. It’s not like we’ve been together years. In fact, it hasn’t even been a whole year yet. You’ll get over it, the fans will get over it, it’s fine. But I’m done, and you can’t stop me.”

“Hyo, please.” Sherlock’s tired, teary voice came from the doorway. “Please don’t go, we need you here.” The rest of the group stood behind Sherlock, looking into the room with wide eyes, fear etched onto all of their faces. Jin gripped Vann’s chest as he started at Hyo, visibly trembling, his eyes overflowing with tears. Hyo felt a stab of guilt at this. Jin had been through so much recently, and now this was happening on his birthday… but it couldn’t be helped, and Hyo wasn’t going to let a little guilt stop him from doing what he had to.

“I’m sorry, I’m done.” Hyo grabbed the half full suitcase, zipping it up and pulling away from Marco’s grip, pushing his way out of the room and towards the front door. As he approached it, the door opened, revealing a frantic Namjoon. Hyo just gave his soon-to-be ex-manager a small smile as he shoved past him out of the dorm and down the stairs.

He’d barely made it out of the front door of the building before Marco was running up behind him, face soaked in salty tears and getting slightly feverish from how worked up he was getting. He tried to ignore his pink haired boyfriend, tried to make his way out of the dorm, but Marco grabbed his wrist and yanked him back.

“You can’t do this, Hyo! I’m not letting you leave! We’ll get through this! For as long as I love you and you love me, I’m not letting you walk away from your dream and throw everything away because of a scandal! It’s just not happening!”

Hyo, feeling the tears build up again, gave Marco a tiny smile. “Then I guess it’s good that I’m breaking up with you then, isn’t it?”

Marco stopped, his gripped loosening on Hyo’s wrist. “You’re what?”

“I said I’m done, Marco, and if you can’t respect my wishes… I’m done with you too. Thank you for being there for me, but I’m going home. I’m not cut out for the idol life. Good luck with everything you do, the long distance relationship wouldn’t work either way. I’m sorry.”

“You can’t do this, Hyo, please…” Marco just repeated, pulling Hyo closer to himself and hiding his face in the crook of the taller’s neck. “Please don’t.”

“I’m sorry, Marco. I’ll be in touch.” Hyo pulled away from Marco and walked out of the front door of the dorm.

A week passed with none of the members able to get hold of Hyo, they’d heard nothing from him. He wasn’t answering texts or returning phonecalls, there had been no updates to his weibo or his instagram…so when the news finally came, the group of 10 remaining members felt a spark of relief at the fact it proved Hyo was alive.

However, the news that had come wasn’t what they had been wishing for.

Hyo was terminating his contract.

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WELL... that happened. This has been planned from the beginning, so I hope none of you were too attached to Hyo...
I am going to be skipping over most of the legal stuff to do with this, however, we will get the emotional reprocussions from the members though.

I hope you enjoyed!