| Fan Fiction |
by Pseudonym
I apologize for posting so fast lol but these particular chapters have my adrenaline pumping. I just keep writing away lol cause I’ve been waiting to write these chapters so badly. So please forgive me for posting too fast.
Thanks again for reading! I appreciate each and every one of you and your comments =) stay safe and healthy pleaaase. oh ckiz03 thanks for the pics just in case u didn't see my previous post
P.S. This chapter contains many clues, and it contains dramatic irony and irony of situation. If you can, apart from just the enjoyment of reading, pay close attention to certain things hehe.
Chapter 37
Jaejoong
Following her had not been the smartest or easiest thing, but I was glad that I found out that she was really snooping around with Seung.
Well, I wasn’t really glad. But my suspicions were put to rest. It was true. She was having an affair.
To add insult to injury, a girl got hurt in the mob that I created. I prayed that nothing severe had happened to her and made it a note to pay her a personal visit at whatever hospital she was ferried in.
We got to the LN building to find it littered with snapping paparazzi. I stifled a groan and sunk deeper in the backseat.
I did not want to deal with people when I found out that the love of my life was knocking boots with another man.
The love of my life. Did I just think that? Such a silly term.
Soon drove close behind us in his car. Speaking of which, I had no freaking idea why he was there at the restaurant. There was just too much going on. The rest of the guys had called me. This was our last day off and to hear news like this I’m sure rattled them. They promised that they were on their way, and once again, I was the soul-bearer of problems.
Mariam. Mariam. Mariam. The things she made me do. No, the things I let her make me do.
I was surprised by how quickly the guys found out. With technology as keen as it was in this day and age, news spread faster than sound and light.
I swear, the media were like magicians. The situation had only occurred minutes ago yet they were already hot on our tails gunning for information.
When the driver finally tooled around the front, we made it to the darkened private parking in the back. The car wasn’t even fully parked when I barreled out and started for the LN building, on my phone as I talked to Yunho about the insanity taking place.
I did not tell him about seeing Mariam and Seung together.
It was too embarrassing. How could I openly admit that I’d been played? How could I openly admit that my defending her was all in vain? Damn it I was a man with pride and at least a little dignity left. I couldn’t let others know that a woman had used me and tossed me aside.
And I was a damn fool for letting this happen the second time in my life. The first time, with my first love, I was a little boy but the effect was still the same. Only now it was worse because I’d invested so much emotion into Mariam it should’ve been deemed a crime.
I felt like crap when she actually had the nerve to walk out on me after the ultimatum I gave her. Had she really just told me that the previous night meant nothing to her? Had she just confirmed DBSK’s and Soon’s suspicions that she really didn’t care about me? That she was after something I possessed rather than the person I was?
Had I been trapped?
I remember her constantly telling me to date other people, that she was scared of me. Were those signs, foreshadowing to the predicament I was stuck in now?
I’ve f***ing asked the woman to marry me and her response was to walk out on me to the waiting arms of another man?
I was through.
I was done.
And it cut like a f***ing knife.
Funny how the cut from a lover’s knife is much like the cut from a reality check. It’s the unkindest cut of all.
Later I learned that my trip to the door with me talking on the phone using animated hand movements made it to the internet that very afternoon from a fan who was spying on us. How in the hell did they manage to do these things? Now I couldn’t live my life in my personal space without worrying that someone other than god was watching my every move.
In a matter of minutes, I barged into Soon’s office, ignoring all the curious stares I got as I went there. I chose Soon’s office because there was no other place for privacy. Also, my gut told me that we were going to have a talk and I saved myself the trip to his office by already being there.
I sat in his highchair, fuming at what I’d just seen. Mariam in the arms of Seung. Why? Why did she do this to me?
When Soon walked in, I didn’t bother to raise my head. My insides felt like all the emotion from within me had been uprooted, leaving nothing else there.
Then a loud thud sounded before pictures obstructed my view of the table. My body went stiff when I saw that the first pictures were of Mariam and I in the hot spring. Grabbing the stack of pictures I went through them in horror. Especially when I saw the ones of my children.
A tightening formed in my chest when I saw some of Seung and Mariam walking into an unspecified area.
My heart was racing a million miles a minute.
“You said you weren’t going to follow us.” It’s only a miracle that I kept my voice leveled. What I really wanted to do was lung across the table and strangle the daylights out of Soon.
In fact, the more that I looked at my smiling children’s faces, wondering what would happen if someone saw them and harmed them, the idea of strangling Soon nearly came to life until he said something that stopped me.
“Mariam met me at The Château restaurant and handed these to me with a bribe.”
His words made me freeze and I flung my eyes up to him. Had he lost his damn mind? That was my first thought.
“Like hell she would do something like this. She wouldn’t do anything like this.”
“She wanted money,” Soon explained and I stared at him blankly.
“Now I know that you’re just reaching. Have you stooped this low?! Mariam wouldn’t do something to jeopardize her own children.”
“She would run off and have another man’s baby,” Soon said and I nearly fainted as dizziness knocked into me.
Suddenly taking the pictures from my grasp, Soon sifted through them until he showed me one of Mariam and Seung walking through automated doors with his arm over my shoulder. I tried to tamper down the rage that gushed into me when is aw that.
“They’re walking into a hospital here—“
“How the hell do you know this?!”
“She told me when she came to me. I’m also pretty familiar with Seoul National University Hospital. That’s where they are in this picture,” he went through some more pictures and showed me another one of Seung following Mariam into another building. “That’s them walking into a house. His house. It’s been going on like this for about a month.”
I started to shake my head in disbelief. No. No. No! I refused to believe such craziness!
“You’re lying,” I murmured in denial.
“Jaejoong, I hate to tell you this but, she’s not the person that you thought she was. She…she came to me today and told me some things that…I don’t know if I should say them.”
Looking at this man, I wondered whether I could trust him or not. Regardless, I wanted to hear what he had to say. Because I wasn’t so sure I trusted Mariam anymore. Not after seeing her with Seung.
“The only reason she was with you was to try to get to me.”
The comment was so absurd my first reaction was to laugh.
“I know, it sounds crazy. But she confessed to me that she wanted to get to me. She has had desires to get into LN Entertainment for the longest while and work as our financial advisor since she got fired in the States. She confessed that she did want to trap you so that she could get her foot in for good. I know it sounds unbelievable Jaejoong, but it’s the truth.”
“You’re a f***ing liar,” I gritted bitterly, refusing to believe what was being said.
“Jaejoong the only time I have ever lied is to protect your well-being.”
“You lie for your personal gain.”
“What do I have to gain out of this Jaejoong? It’s not my reputation that could be ruined. It’s yours. And you can’t act like you don’t care.”
I clenched my mouth hard as anger coursed through me. He was right. I did care. No matter how much I hated to admit it, I cared.
”When I didn’t comply with her, and told her that I wanted her out of your sight, she became angry. See, I found out about you having kids from Mariam, not Dae.”
My eyes flew up to him again. “What?”
Soon nodded. “The day that you found out she had children was the day I found out as well. I had hired an investigator because I knew things weren’t right. Up until Mariam called me and invited me to the place that she was staying, I didn’t know that those were your kids. She gave me the ultimatum. She told me that either I give her the money that she desired or appoint her as staff at LN. If not she threaten to taint your name, releasing a story to your fans that you were a deadbeat father who didn’t want to take care of his kids. She planned it meticulously, because that was the reason why she didn’t tell you for four years straight that the kids were yours. What heartless mother would do that? She told me that if I dared tell you about the visit, then she would claim that I was the one who bribed her instead to leave you. She told me that you loved her too much to believe otherwise, and even said that she would tell the cops that she knew I was responsible for Park Jung Hun’s beating.
“That beating isn’t something that I’m proud of, but Jaejoong, if you went on air immediately, acting carefree right after your DUI, your image would have been ruined. Jung Hun wanted to ridicule you men. He wanted you to look bad for his own personal ratings. I couldn’t let that happen to you, not only for your image as an artist but as a man. I knew you felt remorseful about the DUI, which was why I tried to explain to Jung that you didn’t need to be on his show. But he refused, so I had to buy my way out and teach him not to mess with us again. I tried to explain this to Mariam but she wouldn’t hear of it. The reason why she ran away when I was coming to the resort to solve everything out was because I had threatened to tell the police if she carried on like this. Now I didn’t tell the boys in detail what she had threatened, but I warned them that she was a very dangerous, manipulative person because I knew that if I told them exactly what she did, they would attack you. I didn’t want you to deal with all of that. I guess it was my fault for trying to fix the situation on my own.
“I even went as far to do to my own research because you all are so important to me. I managed to get information from some people in the U.S. who say they believe she was very much a part of the scam that rightfully threw her in jail. The timing was way too perfect, when you really think about it. Because around the same time she was to go to trial, she seduced you and was impregnated with your child. Mariam managed to cut her sentence in half from good behavior—or should I say, acting—and having twins. She has kept quiet all these years because she has been planning.
“The first time she run away from me wasn’t even at the resort. It was before that, when she called me to go to Dae’s house, why do you think she took the children the moment that I told you about your chidlren? Because I was catching her in the act. Did she ever tell you why she left?”
No. She hadn’t told me. Too stunned by all this information, I was muted. So I never gave a verbal response.
“And now, I can bet you if you that the next time you talk to her, she’s going to run away, because she’s been found out. She’s going to take your children and run away. She’s a fraud Jaejoong. She has no foundation. She has no morals. She has you trapped in her web, but I’m not going to let her destroy—“
Soon was cut off when the door burst open. We’d been so engrossed we hadn’t heard the screams that I was sure were there before the door even opened.
“Let me go! I have to see him! I have to talk to him!”
Mariam in the flesh was being held back by security guards. It was pure instinct, and god how I hated it, but I became defensive and shot out of my chair in an arguable stance my fists balled to my sides.
“Let her go!” I demanded.
Soon wasn’t the only one surprised by my coming to her aid instantly. But like I said, it was pure instinct. There was nothing I could have done to stop it. Seeing Mariam being manhandled wasn’t something I could just sit and watch. Shoot me.
“Let…her…go…” I said with more adamancy, ignoring the hopeless gaze that came from Soon and the confused one that came from the guards.
Reluctantly, they let her go and I dismissed them. When they looked at Soon for approval, he nodded and they left.
Mariam looked pale. Her eyes were red from crying. She was just disheveled all over.
It hurt to see her. Because this was not the Mariam that I knew. This was not the woman that I’d first fallen in love with.
Had this all been an act? A lie? Had I joined all those celebrities that were duped and cheated by money-hungry mongrels? Was I just another statistic now?
A foolish man, all in the name of this stupid thing they call love?
Mariam’s chest heaved as she caught her breath, her gaze averting from Soon to me.
Soon then put a hand on my shoulder, but even as he spoke I continuously looked at Mariam.
“You still have a chance to do the right thing son,” Soon said to me before gathering the pictures on the table, stuffing them in his pocket and walking out the door. From the way Mariam acknowledged him taking the pictures made me feel really oddly about her. Was she panicking that he had told me everything?
When he stopped by Mariam she stepped away from him fearfully. The sight bothered me to no end. Was she scared that he would say something about her in front of me?
Too late, Mariam.
Too late…
When the door finally closed behind soon, Mariam rushed over to me with a dire look in her eyes.
“What were you doing with Seung?” I asked her before she could say anything else.
Mariam paused. She blinked at me before turning away just as guilt shaded her eyes.
So it was true…
“What were you doing with him?”
“It’s not what you think,” she began tearfully.
“What do I think?”
Mariam froze again.
Silence enveloped us as we looked at each other. I tried to hide the pain that I felt. I swear I did. But I couldn’t. Not after loving her so damn much it hurt. Not after last night.
Maybe I should have listened to her when she said she didn’t deserve me. Maybe she’d been trying to warn me all along.
So in essence all of this was of my doing—no one else’s.
Sitting down heavily, I fished my pocket for a cigarette pack and a lighter. When Mariam had walked out earlier that morning, I became so distressed that I asked my driver to stop by the store to get me some cigarettes and a lighter. The stress I was going through needed smoking off. I ignored Mariam’s gasp as I shimmied one out, lit it, and began to smoke it. It had been a long, long time since I’d last smoked. I used to do it for pleasure but I was now doing it to control my temper.
“Jae-Jaejoong, you shouldn’t be smoking…” Mariam suggested quietly and I cut my eyes at her. As the smoke heaved up my throat and aired out of my parted lips, I stared at her like she was crazy. Was she really telling me what to do? After all that was happening?
Faltering from my gaze, Mariam eased into one of the chairs placed in front of Soon’s wide desk. She held her head low.
“Did you see Soon today?” I asked through clouds of smoke. She froze again, turned her head slightly as if acknowledging the door that Soon had just walked out of. She looked a bit confused and panicked all at once.
“So he told you?” she asked shakily and I paused my smoking to look at her in wonder.
“That he sent me some pictures—I should have shown them to you but I didn’t want to stress you out. I tried to handle the situation on my own. My purse fell when the commotion happened outside and someone else took it.”
I stared at Mariam in confusion. Soon had just shown me some pictures. Had he taken the purse with him? I hadn’t seen anything of that nature though. All I remember Soon doing was dragging me back to my car before going to his. He didn’t have a purse with him from what I recall.
When all I did was stare at Mariam, she continued.
“I don’t trust that man. I really don’t.”
When I didn’t say anything, Mariam flew her eyes up to mine.
“Jaejoong, you have to believe me,” she said pleadingly.
“Believe what?”
“I—the reason why I was so reluctant to see Soon when we were at the resort was because, well, he tried to bribe me into leaving you before.”
My belly flopped. No! What was she doing?! This was not supposed to happen. She wasn’t supposed to say exactly what he said she would say…
“I wouldn’t take the money. And he told me that if I dared tell you about the visit he paid me then I would regret it. I really don’t trust Soon Jaejoong. There’s something terribly wrong with him. There’s probably more about him that we don’t know. He’s just out to protect himself and ruin other people’s lives—“
“Get out,” I said emotionlessly as I crushed the butt of my nearly done cigarette onto a gold ashtray.
“…What?”
Even as I stood up with a heavy sigh I ignored the look of shock from Mariam.
“Just go,” I advised her quietly, shaking another cigarette from the box on the table. Placing the cigarette in the fissure of my lips, I lit it with my gold lighter, acting as though she wasn’t in the room.
“Jaejoong…” Mariam croaked.
Hearing her that way dipped me in so much turmoil I turned away from her and walked to the nearby window. One quick downward glance out the window and I was assaulted with screams from fans that seemed to base their lives on lurking around LN headquarters. This time, they couldn’t even lift my spirits. Acting as though I didn’t see them, I looked far beyond at the vast city. With my back against the frame of the window, I hiked one leg on the windowsill as I sat on it and continued to smoke.
The stunned silence was loud enough to drown the fan’s vociferous screams of my name.
“…You don’t believe me…”I heard her say quietly.
A painful stinging sensation threaded inside of me. All I did was infiltrate my lungs with as much nicotine as possible to keep me from lashing out.
“I’ll come pick up the kids tonight,” I told her when I finally spoke. “They’re going to stay with me until the chaos dies down.”
”What?!” she began frantically then…
“No! No. I’m going to France with them. I’m not going to let them stick around. Not when someone has those pictures. No.”
I’d been frozen by her words. He said that she would leave, she would run away…
I cut my eyes at Mariam. “You said you dropped the purse with the pictures?”
I was still confused by Soon having pictures too. Were there many copies? Or was there just one?
“Yes. It was a mistake. When the girl fell I struggled against Seung to help her because no one else would. I didn’t really think much about it until the ambulance took her away and—“
“How do I know you didn’t release those pictures on your own? How do I know that the purse was really dropped?”
Mariam’s lips parted but no sound came out. Her face was paler than when she had walked in.
I couldn’t believe what I was saying, then again I couldn’t believe that I’d seen her with Seung earlier.
“You think I would do something like that to my children? To you?”
“You’re constantly apologizing for walking into my life. Maybe you don’t want those children—“
“I can’t believe you—“
“You’ve been absent for days on end without checking in on them. You didn’t even know where they were when you came home last night. How am I to know that you really do care? This started ever since Soon went to see you at Dae’s house. Yeah, I know about that now. The first disappearing act happened then. And from there they were consistent but I just ignored them. If I’d known you were running off with Seung, if I’d known that it would come down to you uncaringly leaving the children, if I’d known it would come to you staying with me one night then leaving with your lover the next morning, then…”
Mariam and I had been through a lot. A lot of arguments and separation mostly. But none had ever amounted to this. No amount of yelling, or demanding, or cursing could encompass what I felt.
Usually I waited for her to do what I always expected—a slap or a hiss. But now I didn’t expect anything from her. Nothing.
Which was why I wasn’t surprised when I heard her footsteps followed by the latch catching the door.
~0~0~0~
Mariam
”I wouldn’t have done that if I were you,” a deep voice said to me when I was a few steps away from Jaejoong’s office. Turning around, I found Soon standing beside the door. He’d probably listened to the entire thing—including me breaking his law of telling Jaejoong about the bribe.
There was a dangerous look in his dark eyes that told me that he would make me pay like promised.
At a loss of what to do, I turned around and started walking off. I was all cried out. There were no more tears left but I’m sure if there were, I’d be crying at the moment. As I sped down the length of the hallway, I got lost, forgetting where I had come in from. Eventually a kind man let me know where the exit was. But that little time that I was lost in the building gave me more than I bargained for.
It was like a switch had gone off, because I’d suddenly become the center of attention as I was walking to the elevators. All eyes were on me. I don’t know if it was because I was an unfamiliar person in this building, but I doubted they whispered to one another about every stranger that walked in.
Nonetheless, I forged on with my head high.
“Are you Mariam Louis?”
I turned to find that a lady standing with a group by a door had asked me that question. Slowing my steps, I didn’t know whether saying yes would be crucial or not.
Something was very odd…
“Are you Jaejoong’s girlfriend?” another one asked with a disgusted look on her face, only to be elbowed by her friend. The question made an unsettling feeling trickle down my spine while I froze up.
My purse…the pictures…the article…
Could it be that they were all already on the internet?! But how did they know I was in the building? Well, I had stormed in and demanded to see Jaejoong. I’d told security that this visit was vital.
And I didn’t exactly blend in with the crowd. With my gold hair and bronze skin, I stood out against my own will. The pictures were clear, taken by exclusive lenses that left nothing to the imagination. What one saw in those pictures was what they got—and that was me.
“It said she had his kids…” someone murmured from behind me.
“What?!” another one hissed in a pitiful whisper. If they were trying not to let me hear they were doing a poor job.
“Mhmm. And that she’s a gold digger. Trapped Jaejoong…”
“She looks weird. Is she Korean?”
“I don’t believe it’s true.”
Everyone was either gaping at me in surprise or glowering at me like I was the scum of this earth. The information had spread. We were ousted.
The games had just begun.
Pursing my lips in agitation and fear, I continued down the hallway quicker, ignoring the chatter I left in my wake.
Once I got to the elevator, I was lucky to find that no one else was in the elevator. I was home free but only for three floors. When I got to the bottom I headed for the front glass doors only to stop in my tracks when I saw that it was moderately swamped with cameramen and reporters. They were already here?! When had this information got out?! After seeing Soon put some pictures in his inner jacket pocket, I was both relieved and mortified. Even though a part of me thought that maybe he’d taken my purse, another part of me thought that the chances of that happening were slim to none. Could it be that he had another set of the pictures? He was the one who’d gotten the pictures taken right?
Whatever the situation was, the damage had already been done. The media was already hunting for information. When I’d come into the building, there weren’t that many, but they were here to question the guys about the hurt fan. It hadn’t been really hard going passed them.
Now was a different story and from the way I was being gawked at I knew I was the centerfold of the story.
The sight frightened me, especially since they became rowdy upon seeing me. They began to flash their cameras nearly blinding me. But for some reason my feet were implanted to the floor and I couldn’t move.
I didn’t know what to do.
Oh god. Could the information really have leaked that fast? It had only been a couple of hours! This was what I got for trying to be a good Samaritan.
Security cordoned the front so that the paparazzi wouldn’t get through, but I could tell they were having a hard time because they were immensely outnumbered.
“We’re going to have to go the other way,” the words were followed with fingers clasping my arm. I turned to find that Dae was the one dragging me the opposite direction. Even though she wasn’t my favorite person in the world, I followed her due to fear and shock and a lack of what I should do next.
She led me to the back area of the large building, an area that was dark and secluded. Opening a door with a set of keys, Dae led me inside and turned on the lights before closing the door behind her.
“Are you insane?!” Dae exclaimed, looking at me wide eyed. I stared back at her dumbly, still trying to understand what was going on.
It was all too much to bear that my legs gave and I sat atop one of the many boxes in the stuffy room.
“Mariam,” she walked up to me and placed her hands on my shoulder, shaking me a little bit. “Threatening Soon—are you crazy?!”
I squinted at her. “What? What are you talking about?”
Sighing, Dae combed her fingers through her hair while walking to one corner of the dinged room. It looked more like a janitor’s closet than the office it was supposed to be. After looking around some more I realized that it was just a storage room.
“Leave town as soon as possible.”
Her words were firm. From the Dae that I thought I knew, she never ever sounded like that. Was this all part of Soon’s plan? Was this an act? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.
“…What?”
Turning around, she walked up to me with desperation in her eyes, sitting on the box across from mine. “Leave town now.”
“Why?”
“Soon is a dangerous man. Far more dangerous than people know. Anyone who is on his black list gets it. And you, my dear, are at the top of his list right now.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong…”
“You threatened him. Why else do you think Jong Hun got beaten? Because he stepped up to Soon and got it.”
“I only threatened him because he threatened the livelihood of my family.”
“He doesn’t care!” the fervor she was speaking with alarmed me. Why did she care so much?
And how did she know all this information?
”Wait, how do you know that I threatened him?” I finally asked her.
She gnawed at her lip hesitantly, before looking up at me again. “Soon and I have been having an affair for the longest. Ever since I gave him information on your whereabouts, he’s been letting me in on what he’s been doing—or at least what he said he wanted to do. He doesn’t like you Mariam, and he’s expressed that to me countless number of times. When you were in there talking with Jaejoong, I came across him because I was trying to find him to let him know that the paparazzo was still waiting for a statement in regards to the fan. But he was so angry, and we could both hear you talking to Jaejoong.
“He got on his phone and called up some people, speaking in codes that I couldn’t understand. But he didn’t look too happy. I’ve heard him make these kind of phone calls before, and they always resulted in someone on the news getting hurt.”
As I listened to all this, I stared at Dae in awe. How in the hell had things come to this?
Looking me directly in the eye, Dae spoke quietly but clearly. “Soon is the kingpin of a gang in southern Seoul that he’s been a part of since he was fifteen years old.”
“What the hell?!” I shot up to my feet and started for the door. “Look Dae I’m not sticking around for this foolishness.”
She caught my arm and stopped me. “Listen to me! This is serious. It’s the truth!”
Either she was a really good actress or she really had something urgent to tell me. Before I could make the decision of whether to listen to her or not, she continued.
“Soon grew up poor and joined a gang called BTK, Big Time Killers. Up to this day, he is still close with the very people he worked with when younger. Soon worked his way up the ladder, eventually becoming one of the top heads in the drug ring. But Soon was very hush hush about how he dealt with being in a gang. I remember him telling me it was more about having a family than it was about having more money.
“He still went to college, and rumors still circulate that he used force to get into LN Entertainment. He saw potential in this business as kpop began to get more widespread. That’s why over the years some of the workers from before left—because they didn’t like the changes this new guy was bringing with him. he worked his way up too in LN Entertainment.
“It wasn’t until Soon joined that the company became one of the biggest names in Asian entertainment history. The only problem is Soon worked through the backwoods. His work was not innocent. And I’ll always remember him telling me that nobody could be successful in this industry without having some dirt behind their name. But LN shot to the roof once Soon arrived, and that was that.
“How else do you think he’s able to fund all these trainees? It takes up to five-hundred thousand dollars for one person. There are over a hundred trainees right now. When you do the math, the amount is staggering. The investment is too risky and record labels don’t amass that much profit anymore because no one is buying records as much as they used to. Soon got his foot in the door by using drug money to fund these artists. Even though they’re well known enough to have money of their own now, that isn’t enough for Soon. He is a greedy man and always wants more. He uses this money to get them time slots on TV and radio stations. You’ll be surprised how many of your favorite hosts take bribes. The reason Park Jong Hun was beaten was because he refused to let Jaejoong off the hook for that one show because it was synonymous to the time Jaejoong received the DUI. And besides all of that how else do you think he, as a manager, acts more as the CEO than he does a regular manager? He basically silenced Kim Gui Jin, the original president of LN Entertainment, using his tyrannical methods. He’s silenced damn near all the heads and replaced them with people he can manipulate.
“And his methods of bribing people and forcing people into doing what he wants only make him being a gangster make more sense. Soon will stop at nothing. He feels remorse for no one. And you’d be better of moving far away before he kicks you out by himself.”
All of this was too surreal. This sounded like a movie gone wrong. I’d heard about him bribing but the whole gang thing was taking it a bit too far. It was too unbelievable.
”You’re lying…” I murmured in distraught.
“I wouldn’t lie about something like this. Leave Mariam. That’s my best advice to you. Take the children and leave.”
My head shot up angrily. “Do you know how difficult it is for kids to constantly move?! How do I know that Soon didn’t send you here to tell me this? How do I know he didn’t make up yet another story just to scare me off?!”
“If you want to wait and see what he’s going to do to you, then fine, by all means, wait! But don’t say you weren’t warned! Your life is practically on the line!”
“It’s been on the line already!” my outburst stunned Dae into silence. That explosion was taxing, because I swayed and hadn’t Dae caught my arm, I would’ve fallen to the ground.
“Mariam! Are you okay?!” she asked while helping me sit up. Gently, I pushed her arm off, expelling a rush of air out of my body to try and gain some strength.
“I’m fine,” I murmured, hating myself for letting the situation get the best of me as I struggled to my feet. Regardless, Dae helped me up.
“Come on, I’ll show you a way to leave from the back.”
Because I was feeling so weak, I was secretly glad for Dae as she steered me through the south-end of the building to a dark hallway with an exit at the end.
Once Dae pushed the door open and led us outside, we were flanked by shrubbery and a pathway that went around to the open street.
“From here, just go around that way and then come back with their backs facing you. They wont see you.” She suddenly took off the beanie she wore, veiling my hair and cloaking my head in it. She then took off her jacket and gave it to me, instructing me to give her mine.
“Go now,” she instructed. Nodding faintly, I turned down the walkway and stopped slowly when a thought hit me.
“If he’s so bad, why are you sticking by his side?” I asked after turning to face her. Dae sighed and frowned.
“Another thing about Soon is he’s very manipulative. I signed a five-year contract, only to realize they’re not really doing much with me. I’d have to take him to court if I wanted out. And I’d have to pay him an amount of money that I can’t even imagine having,”
Even though Dae and I were on the rocks, I couldn’t help but feel for her but only for a nanosecond. I still didn’t trust her.
Sighing heavily, Dae placed her hands on my shoulders and looked me directly in the eye.
“Look, I know we don’t see eye to eye. We may not like each other, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t tell you when danger is ahead. I may be a weak person, but I know when the line should be drawn. Soon is planning to step over that line. Your life could be in danger.”
With that said, she went to the door that locked from the outside, punched some numbers on the security dial beside the door and went inside.
Sighing heavily, I braced myself and followed the path she told me to take in order to avoid the media. As I hurried down the street with my head held low and the hood over my head, I wondered if Soon really was as bad as they said. As she said.
I mean, really, what were the chances that he really was a part of a gang? A gang? I heard a lot about music industries having smug behind their names but never in my wildest dreams thought that any relation to gangs would be possible. I hated those kinds of things. I never ever associated with that kind of world, there for I was not familiar with the kinds of things they did other than make crime and murder others.
It just seemed too unreal to me. This was too farfetched. I refused to believe that the man behind one of the most powerful entertainers in Asia was a gangster.
But I couldn’t help but acknowledge why I refused to believe such an outrageous thing.
Denial.
I was in denial.
And I was scared because there was no telling where things were going to go from here.
When I got to the parked car where Seung was waiting, I collapsed inside my seat. He started shooting question after question at me like a bunch of detonating missiles. That only worsened my already painful headache.
He stopped suddenly as I lay my head on the headrest rubbing my head.
“Mariam,” he called out softly, brushing some strands away from my face. “Are you okay?”
I didn’t answer him. Tears steadily streamed down my temples as I remembered Jaejoong’s harsh words to me. I had never seen him so distrusting of me before. I could only wonder what Soon had told him.
If only I had gotten there earlier.
But it was already too late. The damage had already been done.
“When are you going to tell him?” Seung asked in a quiet whisper that made my eyes flutter open for me to glare at him.
“This is what you’re worried about right now?” I wailed.
“It’s hanging over our heads Mariam! We can’t ignore it anymore!”
“You’re selfish Seung,” I said while I turned away, my arms folded over my chest angrily. “You’re so freaking selfish!”
“He’s going to have to find out some day. And you’re going to have to tell him. Because right now, we’re not going to be able to sneak around anymore.”
His words sent a chill down my spine.
~0~0~0~
Jaejoong
Two days later
All the activities that we were meant to carry out were postponed. Again. All thanks to me and my dumb decisions at life.
The rest of DBSK didn’t say anything. They didn’t acknowledge my faults. We had no time to. All we could do was focus on the chaos.
The secret was out.
Somehow, someway, despite Soon having the pictures, they were leaked to the press.
I guess Mariam was either right about someone publishing the pictures or lying because she’d done it on her own.
And it was not pretty.
An article was attached to the pictures that had come out. I wanted to denounce the stories, but I couldn’t. Not when I wasn’t sure about Mariam anymore. I was astounded by the domino effect of the entire situation. There wasn’t a news station that wasn’t covering this news.
When reports that our website had shut down because of millions of fans flocking to the page, I knew that we were no longer playing with fire—we were in the heart of the fire.
I heard from Junsu that websites were going crazy talking about the pictures. Our company tried to remove the pictures from as many websites as possible, but the sad thing about the internet is you could never get really get rid of something. It’s like a terminal disease. Once it’s there, it’s there.
To my surprise DBSK were supportive of me even though I knew the entire situation scared them. We’d just come from succeeding through a mishap, we’d just created a milestone, only to have another bullet strike us.
This was no longer about DUIs. It wasn’t just about a fist fight.
It was about a DBSK member, god forbid, having a child and a gold-digging mistress. That’s what they thought this was about.
They were crucifying Mariam mercilessly. Slowly but surely, their hatred towards me began at that moment. I was deemed a traitor. A liar. An untrustworthy artist who lied to the masses just for some more dollars.
Slowly but surely, I was becoming the enemy.
All because I had allowed my feelings for another person to blossom. It’s crazy right?
I told the guys to stop telling me these things and even shut myself off in Yunho’s apartment, where we were staying as the world rioted around us.
Since Yunho’s home was in an exclusive place where privacy was mostly unbridled, there were a handful of fans that had managed to find it. Security had escorted them out, but with the mindfulness that somehow more would find out where we were thus more would return.
We were supposed to go visit the hurt fan the following day, but I didn't know if i had the heart to see her or anyone else just yet.
As I sought refuge in Yunho’s room, I sat by the window watching the horizon. Despite the craziness surrounding us, it appeared to be a calm day. A couple was walking the dog on the sidewalk. Some children were playing in a backyard. Life was still pretty normal for some. Life didn’t revolve around DBSK, so I was sure there were people who didn’t give a damn about this scandal.
I started to wish the fans could be like those people. I started to wish that they didn’t care.
But at the same time I couldn’t blame them. Not when I used to say things like I wanted to marry a fan one day or called them my other half.
I looked like a f***ing hypocrite.
To make matters worse, the police started revealing things they supposedly found in relation of Soon. There were these stupid allegations that a young woman—who chose to remain unidentified—had told them that he might have been part of a notorious gang. Now bribing was one thing that I could believe because I saw it, but accusations that Soon was a part of an actual gang was something I wouldn’t believe until I saw. I wasn’t taking Soon’s side completely, but that was a bit absurd and out there.
He was the one mostly pissed about the entire thing. Really pissed.
He had come in at some point having a mental breakdown, throwing this tirade saying that he knew it was Mariam who had revealed such information to the cops. I didn’t know what to say. Where would she find such information anyway? And how was he so sure that it was Mariam? At this point, it could’ve been anyone.
But he thought that it only made sense that it was Mariam because she was mad. She wanted to seek revenge now that her name was slandered. Like he’d said yesterday, she’d threatened to reveal some information that could ruin his life. But really, could Mariam go as far as to make up something like that? I hated to admit it but whether he was just talking out of madness or not, he kind of made sense. I could see a motive for her to do it. I just don’t think she would come up with something like that when I knew how much she hated gangs.
But maybe that’s why she had made up something like that? She hated Soon so much that she associated him with gangs?
I don’t know. It was all too much to take in at once. I was starting to get confused.
His infuriation, though startling, was something I ignored. I was worried about my children. I had called Mama countless times with Yunho’s house phone, but she had told me before leaving with the kids to her sister’s place that it was a remote area where reception was bad. The only problem with Yunho’s phone is that no one could call it back. He’d set it up such that it would show up as ‘Unknown’ on the other person’s caller ID. He did this for privacy purposes and I wondered if not knowing who was calling was part of why Mama wasn’t picking up.
My kids really stood out. They wouldn’t exactly blend in the crowd with their light hair and light eyes. They could be easily spotted.
Even though we had some pretty strong-willed fans, I doubted that they would hurt children. But the bad thing about it is that I didn’t know. There was really no way of telling how this thing would go.
Sighing sharply, I hopped off the windowsill and went to my bag which I’d placed at the corner of Yunho’s spacious room. I’d turned my phone off to stave off the millions of calls that I was getting. But I had promised my mother—both of them—that I would call and let them know how things were faring. Since I didn’t know their numbers by heart, I had no choice but to turn on my phone in order to get them.
When I saw that I had nearly twenty voicemails, I was stumped. Even though I tried to convince myself that I didn’t want to know who called, temptation got the best of me.
After seeing that the last five calls were from Mama, I started instantly called her back without question. She answered on the second ring.
And she answered with cries. I was alarmed.
“Mama—“
“Mariam! Oh my—my baby! She’s, she’s been brutally beaten! I’d just come from my sister’s with the kids to find her on the door step! She was unconscious and bleeding all over!” rakish sobs scratched the phone. “We’re in the ho—hospital right now. I tried to call you as soon as I—oh god Jaejoong. Someone hurt my baby! Someone hurt my only baby!”