342. Fate (7)

“…They’re not coming.”

“Aren’t they answering their phones?”

“Yeah.”

Midnight would strike any minute now.

I couldn’t get in touch with them.

I’d sent Hinami and Seo Jia messages multiple times, but no replies came. If they’d just said it would be too difficult to sneak over, I could accept it, but with absolutely no news, I couldn’t help but feel anxious. They must have gone back to their respective hotel rooms a while ago, and they aren’t being watched by anyone, or so I thought.

“Isn’t something wrong? They might not be able to come, but there’s no reason they can’t contact us, right?”

“I guess that makes sense, but how can we check?”

I knew which room numbers they were staying in. However, I felt really uneasy about going to their rooms myself without warning. When they come to this room, Haeun can just open the door, but if I go to them, they’d have to open the door themselves, wouldn’t they? It was hard to dismiss it as mere paranoia, considering how famous they were.

…Honestly, I was so tired of worrying like this that I wanted to run away somewhere far, right now.

“Let’s wait a bit longer. If there’s still no contact, I’ll go look for them.”

“…Okay.”

“Don’t worry too much. Maybe they’re having a meeting about tomorrow’s schedule. Or maybe they just fell asleep from exhaustion.”

“Yeah.”

It was infuriating that I couldn’t step up for them. If someone were physically assaulting them, I could at least try to stop it with force. No matter how grandly I promised to be their shield or take the blame, the fact that there was nothing I could do with my own hands left me feeling utterly helpless.

…Honestly, it felt like shit that I still had to care about public perception even after things had gotten this far. I briefly imagined if throwing away my phone would let me ignore such gazes, but… Ironically, I just realized that without this very phone, I couldn’t even contact them.

“…Cheer up a bit. If something serious had happened, they would have contacted us too.”

“…Okay.”

I,

Do I want to enjoy the public’s attention?

…Or do I want to be forgotten by the public?

When I was kissing them, a violent urge to look down on everyone else boiled up inside me, but… At times like this, when I couldn’t meet them easily, I wished I could just be forgotten. I didn’t feel much even when I got cursed out online, but… The thought of them receiving cold stares in real life made me feel like shit. It didn’t matter how I was treated, but… Thinking that my children might hear bad things about me made it impossible to stay calm.

…That, too, is probably my karma.

**

On the way back to the hotel after the schedule ended,

I was kidnapped by the Director in the parking lot.

…His expression was extremely grim.

It was like… the face I saw when the drug scandal broke out last time.

“Hey, fuck, are you out of your damn mind or what?”

“…I apologize.”

The Director sent the manager away, then put us in his car and drove us to a secluded spot before dragging us out.

…Yes, at the very place where I had relations with him yesterday, he showed us a photo.

A photo of a woman wearing a hat pulled down low, sneaking into a man’s house.

The man was… apparently a handsome baseball player.

…Obviously, the house in the photo wasn’t Kang Joo-hyuk’s residence. Since he lives in the same building as me, we wouldn’t need to wear hats like that.

Fortunately, it was another member in the photo. Unfortunately, that meant there was even less room for excuses.

“Your oldest unnie just went through something like that recently, can’t you exercise some restraint? Are you crazy?”

“…”

“Did you decide to just go wild now that the no-dating clause is out of the contract? I explicitly told you to just avoid getting caught. What are you trying to pull, doing this right after your comeback?”

“…I apologize.”

“I really want to kill you all…”

The Director, whose patience had shattered long ago, no longer hid his rage and yelled furiously in front of us, who were now four members instead of five. But the unnie taking the brunt of his anger only apologized verbally, without showing any signs of remorse.

…After all, she had a boyfriend too, and it was the Director who had begged her to stay after she threatened to quit for fear of facing the same backlash from a scandal. Of course, I wasn’t saying that unnie was right, but emotionally, I understood.

…I was in a similar situation-

No,

I was in a much more serious state.

Likewise, I could understand the Director’s feelings. He probably wanted to kill us all. His hard-earned ‘products’ were being devalued by one member malfunctioning on her own.

“…Look, fuck, I’ll try to prevent any news from breaking until the end of this year, so please be careful, okay?”

“…”

“Not just you. All of you. Okay?”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, you, fuck. Hinami. You. You’re seeing someone too, aren’t you?”

“Ah, well, that…”

“…Don’t get caught. Please.”

Although I couldn’t be sure how much the furious Director knew, he definitely didn’t seem to know everything. If he had known the full truth, he would have kicked us out immediately using any means necessary when we threatened to leave.

…Because Hinami and I were dangerous bombs, capable of making even a drug scandal seem like ‘just’ a minor issue.

It was probably a guess based on experience. Like, ‘A girl like Hinami wouldn’t possibly not be dating someone,’ that kind of vibe. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t pressuring me specifically. Because if it weren’t for Kang Joo-hyuk, I would never have dated anyone.

“…I’m tired of getting angry, so let’s act like professionals. We reduced your contract terms because you whined so much, right? Is it really that hard to just work hard for one year and then call it quits? Do you think you’re the only ones putting in effort? Do you know how many people worked hard to get you where you are?”

“…”

“Please… please let’s wrap this up cleanly. Aren’t you ashamed in front of your fans who support you?”

“…I apologize.”

The Director’s voice, pleading with us not to shame ourselves in front of the fans, didn’t resonate with me that much.

…My fans?

The fans who cursed me out left and right the moment Seoyoung unnie’s scandal broke, trying to cut ties? Or the fans who wrote weird fanfiction pairing me and Hinami as a lesbian couple? Or the fans filming my fancams and jacking off while looking at my cleavage and thighs?

Of course… I don’t think that’s necessarily wrong.

…It’s just that you were the one who pulled all sorts of schemes to extort money from those so-called fans. Bringing in girls who were just pretty with nice voices, slapping on makeup, putting on wigs, fabricating personalities, creating songs from just vocal tones, and committing both legal and illegal bullshit under the guise of marketing – that was definitely the Director’s doing.

Is an idol dating a guy more shameful than all that?

I don’t know anymore.

What the line even is.

“…Get back in the car. We’ll talk about the rest tomorrow. Everyone go straight to bed. Don’t miss any schedules.”

“”””Yes.””””

If loving is a sin, am I okay because I don’t love him? If having relations is a sin, is it okay as long as that unnie only enjoys a fresh romance with her boyfriend? Maybe the profession of being an idol itself is the sin. It’s a job where you lie and say ‘I love you’ to people you can never truly reciprocate love to.

It was definitely the dream I longed for so much when I was young, but…

…now, I couldn’t tell what was what.

Perhaps he, too,

Couldn’t provide an answer for this.

Just…

Letting me lean on him.

**

“…It’s about time I checked-“

Burururu.

As soon as the hour, minute, and second hands all pointed to 12, the unresponsive phone vibrated.

A short message: ‘Open the door.’

Haeun, who had been about to go look for them herself, glanced at my phone, took off the outer layer she had put on, and approached the door in her tank top.

“…Why were you so late?”

“Sorry, unnie.”

“We waited forever. Oh, where’s Hinami?”

“…Behind me.”

“…”

The sight of them looking utterly dejected.

…While I couldn’t be sure what had happened, I could guess. And I knew they wouldn’t want to talk about it.

“Sit down for now. …We got tired of waiting and showered already, so you two should wash up too.”

“Okay.”

“…”

Haeun ushered the two, who smelled faintly of sweat, into the bathroom, then returned to my side as I sat on the bed, rested her head on my thigh, and let out a long sigh.

“…Did Hinami get caught? She looks upset.”

“If she had, she wouldn’t have been able to come here.”

“True, if she’d really been caught properly, she would have been confined like last time.”

“That… I don’t want to imagine that.”

“…Yeah, I don’t like that either.”

…I really didn’t want to imagine the consequences if things had escalated. If I were their agency, it was obvious what kind of ‘decisions’ they would ‘force’. And it was also obvious what kind of backlash they would face if they refused.

Even so…

I wanted to hold them. Because I was the one who took away all the places they could lean on.

…Now, if it wasn’t me, they’d have nowhere to turn.

“But, is it okay to be with Hinami? It’s still early-“

“Of course not. …I’ll just hold her. For a while.”

“…What about Ye-eun?”

“She’s… it’s not even confirmed yet.”

Even if I couldn’t be a shield, I wanted to be a tree for them. I wanted to understand what they had gone through, even without them telling me. After all, this twisted and broken relationship…

…no one but us could understand it.

…The only people who could comfort each other were…

…each other.