I
t was strange how calm she was about this.
Fi was still in bed, scrolling through her text exchange with Yihwan. Somehow, she felt confident she could face the band leader today without the need to avert his gaze, unlike the time she couldn’t even look into his eyes for more than three seconds.
The truth will set you free, they said, and she supposed that today, those words held true.
Because the ball was in Yihwan’s court now, and though she’s still undecided if she wanted him to do something about it, she relished the feeling of relief in her chest.
She closed her eyes and recalled the moment he almost kissed her. But the alcohol in his system said, “Not today” and forced him to hurl. All over her shirt.
She remembered sitting still, eyes shut and anticipating her lips coming to contact with his, but it wasn’t disappointment she felt when warmth spread all over her shirt instead. It was concern (maybe a bit of panic and a dash of disgust) that she felt for Yihwan, who was too embarrassed to do anything but help her clean up, go through his wardrobe, and find something else for her to wear.
Fi smiled. Last night was definitely still memorable.
Her eyelids fluttered open when she heard her phone ring.
Gabriel Park
CALLING…
“Hey, Gabe.”
“Hm. That tone. I suppose you haven’t seen the thing yet.”
“What thing?”
“Where are you?”
She sat up and scanned the room for her laptop. “What thing?” she asked again, hopping off the bed to grab the device and do a quick search. If it’s Gabriel calling, it was highly likely some damage control needed to be done.
“A blind item. A very obvious one. Were you in the band’s hotel room last night?”
“Yeah, Yihwan got himself sick drinking.”
“Shit.”
Upon hearing the mild expletive, Fi imagined Gabriel standing by his desk, palm pressed against his face, fingers possibly massaging his temples. His was a job that required quick thinking and a whole lot of patience, and if the vague detail he just blurted out was anything to go by, she’d bet he was troubleshooting another EG Project issue.
An issue that involved her.
She found out exactly what when she pulled up the search returns and saw a Dispatch article containing photos of a man and a woman against a familiar milieu. The faces have been blurred, sure, but Fi’s hands turned cold when she finally grasped the gravity of the situation.
Top Idol Sleeps with a Woman in Foreign Hotel, the blind item headline read.
This time, she was the one who wanted to throw up.
* * *
Back in Seoul, Gabriel watched helplessly as a PR disaster exploded right in front of his very eyes. They haven’t even recovered from the entire Han Haera brouhaha yet, and now they had a new fire to extinguish. Part of him wanted to yell at Fi over the phone for being so careless, but he knew it could have been any female member of the band’s entourage just doing their job, and nothing would have changed.
“The fans already know it’s Yihwan,” one of the younger PR managers voiced out. “Subtlety isn’t exactly in Dispatch’s vocabulary.”
Gabriel sighed. “What time does EGP leave Bangkok?”
“Five o’ clock, Manila-bound.”
Manila. He recalled how thrilled Fi was about this trip when the tour itinerary was decided. It was five years ago when Fi finished a short film and music course at an Amethyst-affiliated school and received a job offer at the company. Still young and impressionable, she took the offer, not yet fully realizing that the nature of her job would steal many opportunities to fly back home.
If memory served him right, Fi’s last vacation was three years ago. Now Gabriel felt concerned she might get pulled out of the Manila leg because of this morning’s developments.
So far, however, none of the higher-ups have said anything about replacing her.
“How many hours from Seoul to Manila?” he asked.
“Four hours, give or take.”
Minja peered at him through her glasses. “Don’t tell me you’re actually flying to Manila.”
Gabriel shut down his laptop and cleared his desk, contemplating how to justify the sudden want to accompany the band while they navigated through this mess. If he flew out within the next two hours, he might even get to Manila before they do.
Minja spoke up again. “You do know you can troubleshoot things from here, right? We have this thing called technology.”
There really was no use concealing something Minja already sniffed out of him a long time ago, so he decided to say, “Fi needs me.”
The woman went “Ah,” like the answer had been obvious all along. “I think the more accurate reply would be “‘Fi might need me.’”
“Doesn’t matter. I should be there.”
* * *
Suvarnabhumi Airport bustled with activity on a daily basis, but it threatened to burst at the seams whenever celebrities arrived in and left the country. Throngs of avid fans and press people gathered at the concourse to welcome them or send them off, and security was tripled so that no untoward incidents happen.
The scene at the airport today was similar to what the band saw during their arrival two days ago, although the air was now rife with tension. Over the past several hours, a lot of speculation about the Dispatch blind item came up. Many fans and netizens have concluded that it was, in fact, Jo Yihwan and one of EG Project’s female entourage members who were photographed at the hotel.
The fans were enraged. They wanted to know who exactly the woman was and why she was wearing the band leader’s shirt when she left the hotel suite they entered together.
“Don’t be scared, noona. We have your back,” Minchan reassured the roadie as they prepared to step out of their van.
But Fi’s mind was already somewhere else. Home. The prospect of coming home after five years was enough to give her courage and just go, mob of angry fans nothwithstanding.
“I’m not scared.” Fear is for people who do bad things, her late father once told her. She was then six years old, hiding under the bed because her school uniform got soiled after a classmate pushed her while playing tag. You didn’t do anything wrong. And we can always wash your clothes.
She repeated the words in her head with conviction, her father’s voice so clear, it was as though he was right there with her.
I didn’t do anything wrong. Among other things, it was her responsibility to make sure every member of the band was in tip-top shape or well taken care of should they not be in the best of health.
Heart pounding against her rib cage, Fi stepped out of the van right behind the band. The walk spanning several meters to the airport lobby felt like miles, and the screaming fans that usually made her smile now made her insides turn.
Her knees were like jelly as they walked through the concourse. A blur of fan signs and placards being waved up in the air came to view, as well as fans who reached over the barricades to hand out flowers or gifts. Airport security handled them and turned them over to the band’s bodyguards. On the way to the immigration desk, Fi kept her head down and tried her best to keep up with the rest of the entourage.
As the immigration officer checked her documents, Fi gave her group an uneasy sideways glance, feeling like they’ve gone ahead without her. They haven’t; it was only her paranoia talking.
Once she crossed the threshold to the boarding area, Fi let out a breath of relief and almost skipped toward her pack. She saw Yihwan look back and smile at her. He seemed relieved too.
But her relief turned to mild confusion when Yihwan did a double take, turned on his heel, and started toward her. She belatedly registered screaming behind her and looked back, only to have her hair grabbed with such strong force that it threw her off balance.
A second later, everything went black.