Tae woke up the next day feeling a little better, like he'd gotten over the flu, still not 100 percent but that little seed of hope and his talk with his mother had allowed him a decent night's sleep for the first time in a while.
He stretched and got up, showered, even did his skin care routine and was humming to himself as he went down to breakfast,
Both his parents were working the farm so he had the house to himself. He put on some music and shimmied a few dance steps while gathering his breakfast bits. He then sat and scrolled through his phone whilst eating.
WHO'S JKS MYSTERY WOMEN
MYSTERY WOMEN SEEN GOING INTO JKS HOTEL ROOM
MYSTERY WOMAN SEEN LEAVING IN THE EARLY HOURS
the headlines went on and on. Tae froze mid mouthful, mind went blank. He clicked on the photo to see if there was any doubt, but unlike their 'incriminating' photo there was no doubt of the subjects in these.
His gorgeous, handsome JK was standing at his hotel door holding it open, barefoot, in ripped jeans and a black t shirt. "God he is beautiful" Tae thought. Then looked at the women.
"she looks like a hooker!!" he said disgustedly to his phone. He knew he wasn't being fair but didn't care. "was that a smile on Jk's face" he asked himself zooming in as much as his phone would let him... No not a smile exactly but what?
He read some of the accompanying articles but the headlines pretty much said it all, a pretty women had been seen going in to his room, and then the slightly dishevelled women had been clicked leaving.
Tae's heart literally broke into a million pieces, all logical thought flew out the window. This pain was so bad even his tears were frozen, he'd gone numb.
He sat and stared into space, this was worse than when JK had left, this was a feeling of dying literally, how could his heart still beat, how could he still breath, he didn't want to die he just couldn't understand how he hadn't.
Nothing was making sense any more, not JK, not his own thoughts, nor his feelings,.. He could feel his stomach churning and only just made it to the toilet in time before he brought his breakfast up.
Shaking and weak he made his way back up to his room and crawled onto the bed, he waited for the tears to come, but they refused.
He thought he could hear his phone ringing downstairs but couldn't be bothered to move, what was the point, no one he wanted to call would be calling so he'd rather stay in bed and wait for the pain to kick the numbness away.
Morning turned to afternoon and still no tears. His mother had come back around lunch time and he heard her moan out loud that he'd left the music on and not cleared up after his breakfast, but she didn't come up stairs.
Around three in the afternoon he heard his phone ring again, contemplated going to get it and changed his mind.
He wondered how long he could last here and just be numb, surely this wasn't normal, crying had, unfortunately always come easily to him in the past, but literally nothing, he could feel his heart pumping, his head felt heavy on his pillow. His bladder was telling him he had to move and he really needed a glass of water, being sick had left a horrible taste in his mouth, even though he'd rinsed, but still he just didn't want to move.
Eventually of course his bladder won out and he slowly made his way to the bathroom. Whilst he was up and about he went down to get some water too,. Like a zombie he plodded into the kitchen and helped himself to a bottle of spring water from the fridge. He eyed his phone on the table.
He honestly couldn't be bothered and was about to leave it when it started to ring again, the name flashing up on the screen was his... choreographer?.
He briefly thought " I wonder what he wants" but right now the last thing he wanted to do was talk a new dance routine so he let it go to voicemail, left it where it was and went back upstairs.
He spent the next hour imagining patterns in the rooms textured ceiling,
Knock knock came from the front door, Tae groaned but knew he had to go down and answer.
It was Mr Park.? Automatically he did a polite little bow and greeted his dance teacher, confusion marred his beautiful features as his eyes silently questioned him.
Mr Park nodded back and asked to come in and of course Tae stepped aside and waited whilst Mr Park took his shoes off and came into his living room. He looked hot so Tae grabbed him a bottle of water from the fridge.
"Mr Park?," he said.
Mr Park looked at Tae, he looked awful he thought his face was puffy and his hair unkept. He was wearing a set of pyjamas a couple sizes too big for him and he had odd socks on.
"what's going on?" he asked Tae,
Tae was confused, "you came to see me!?" he said
"no i mean with you and JK"
Pain flashed accross Tae's face at the mention of JK and Mr Park noticed... "ahh, so the rumours are true are they?"
"what rumours?" Tae questioned but of course he knew. He sighed and sat down, twisting JKs ring over and over, but didn't say anything.
Mr Park took a swig straight from the bottle of water and had a contemplative look on his face, as though he was making a decision.. Then he smiled and said" I have a message for you from JK,"
Tae looked up fast" you do? "he asked hating the hope and desperation in his voice,
Mr Park smiled and said yes," not sure what it means but.., "he looked at his phone and said" Tae, it's all choreographed, like our dances " does this mean anything to you?"
The tears that had refused to come all day fell freely from Tae's eyes as realisation dawned on him.. Of course nothing he saw on social media was real.. Bang controlled every one and every thing.
Mr Park was visibly shocked by Tae's tears but Tae didn't care he was smiling the biggest smile through his happy relieved tears.
Tae had a feeling Mr Park now knew what was going on, and surprisingly suddenly Tae didn't care who knew about his feelings.
Still grinning his trademark goofy grin Tae shook Mr Parks hand very enthusiastically. He apologised for making him come all the way out to speak to him, for not answering the phone, but Mr Park has decided this was probably better, no virtual paper trail for Bang to follow, and had said it was fine and he wasn't to worry about it, "how ever on the drive over here I had to come up with a legitimate reason for coming to see you so let's talk about the choreo for the American talk show promo tour you have coming up,"
Tae spent a happy afternoon talking and blocking out moves and was actually sad to see his friend and teacher leave.
As they shook hands Mr Park slipped something in Tae's hand, winked and then left. Tae opened his hand to see a little rainbow pin.. PRIDE he thought. Smiling he went back inside and hoped tomorrow wouldn't be as much of an emotional roller-coaster as today had been.
