Strawberries & Dreams | Taekook |

Chapter Twelve

The office floor was filled with rows of desks that faced each other. Some had a setup like cubicles, but most had free access to their co-worker's work spaces. It was Sunday evening and at this time of the day only an emergency set of writers and photographers were present at this particular office as Dispatch Korea was the on-line equivalent of a dish rag magazine of the 20th century. Within these four walls in the business district of Seoul, the lives of actors, celebrities and idols could be hyped or destroyed with just one click on a keyboard.

Tonight, Oh Beom-Seok was on call. He was a middle aged man, he had a round face and a receding hairline. He drank too much soju, smoked too much, and had come to Seoul as a young university student to become a famous writer. Nowadays, he was in his third divorce and life sucked. He wore sensible running shoes and an all purpose fishing vest over his checkered shirts, but here ended the sporty image he had acquired ten years ago and that he was still showing to the world. So he took pride in the fact that he had the power to make someone else's life miserable if he so choose to. The telephone on his desk rang a few times before he picked it up.

"Dispatch, Oh Beom-Seok speaking. What's the dish?"

"I have some saucy sound files you might be interested in," a male voice offered over the line and the Dispatch Korea writer's head perked up.

"You don't say?" Oh Beom-Seok replied and gestured his colleague to pick up the extension. "Which celebrity are we talking about then?"

"Jeon Jungkook."

Oh Beom-Seok snorted. "Please, we have been after BTS for years and not one of them had any slip ups. They are always together, and they are really protective of their maknae."

"Well what if the maknae has a little sordid affair?"

"Do you have proof? Audio and photos?" Oh Beom-Seok inquired and watched as his partner quickly wrote something on his note pad and held it up. Beom-Seok read: WHERE?!

"And where did it take place, here in Seoul?"

"No, I have recordings from a hotel in Busan, the Hyatt," the male voice said over the line, and then it dropped down as if he did not want to be overheard. "I recorded him, and you can hear them."

"So who is he with? Another idol or an actress?" Oh Byul-Seok requested.

"I don't know as the hotel room was booked in Jeon Jungkook's name, but here is the kicker. It's not a woman!"

Oh Beom-Seok and his colleague looked at each other. Now THAT was worthy of a Dispatch headline, especially with the photos they had recently aquired and now it all fit.

"Can we meet?" Oh Beom-Seok asked, his pen at the ready to dot down an address.

~_*_~

On a Tuesday morning a week after the concerts the world as they knew it imploded. .

IDOL INVOLVED in SEXSCANDAL

IDOL in GAY RELATIONSHIP

TREASURED MAKNAE of IDOL BAND GAY

MALE IDOL INVOLVED with MAN

These were just some of the headlines that hit newsstands and social media. National news showed photographs of Jungkook and 'an as of yet unidentified man'; from the funeral; someone had taken a very fuzzy photo of them kissing at the train station in Daegu at night. But the kicker was an article of hotel staff recounting the fact that Jeon Jungkook indeed had booked a hotel room for another male and had ordered the honeymoon dinner.