Trusting (KTH)

Chapter 10

Taehyung was seething. He couldn't believe how Sooyun had turned his life upside down. Clara was on the verge of a breakdown. BTS was about to deal with a whole lot of press asking some very difficult questions. His boy's pictures were everywhere. The only possible saving grace was that Sooyun hadn't included any pictures of Clara or him.

By now the rest of the members had wandered into the suite to join the impromptu gathering and he could see a staff member had laid out some coffee on the table.

"Hyung, how is Clara?" Kookie made a bee-line for Taehyung as soon as he walked into the room. Taehyung knew he owed Jungkook an apology too, but he had so many problems he didn't know where to start trying to fix them.

"Everyone sit down and let's discuss what we know." Namjoon was falling into his leader role to get everyone in line.

Nodding to one of the managers, he started to fill in the members with the full details.

"At about 4 o'clock this morning things blew up online. There was a sudden wave of chatter about how one of the members had twins and pictures of the boys were circulating like wildfire. At first we weren't sure where the pictures had come from but we quickly tracked them to an instagram account. It was obvious that the account must belong to Sooyun, so we woke her up and she confessed it was hers."

"What are people saying about it?" Yoongi asked.

"Not surprisingly it's a bit mixed. Some people are happy and say the boys are beautiful. Some are angry and think you've been dishonest. And of course there is a lot of speculation on who the father is."

"Sooyun featured herself prominently in many of the pictures so virtually all of the internet chatter seems to identify her as the mother. Most fans seem to think the boys must belong to Yoongi because they have his skin color, or maybe Jin because he's the oldest. And of course some are suggesting Taehyung because the boys resemble him and he's always talked about wanting kids".

"Hotel security has already reported a huge uptick in fans trying to get into the hotel and right now the building is relatively surrounded. The company hasn't issued a statement yet. We have three options that we're considering."

"First, we can just allow the pictures to circulate and disavow any knowledge of the boys. The obvious disadvantage is that it keeps the pictures out there forever but it avoids a bigger announcement. Then I think we'd just have to hope things died down on their own."

"Second, we can scrub the pictures off the internet but we'd either need to say we don't comment on our members' private lives or admit the truth. Either way we'd have to assume people will believe that the boys belong to one of you otherwise we wouldn't care if the pictures were out there."

"Third, we could issue a press release that attached the boys to Sooyun and someone else on staff who has been traveling with the tour but isn't in the band, like someone from security. We'd follow that with a request to respect their privacy. We might even send Sooyun and the staff member out in public together to serve as a distraction. But it means we need to keep Sooyun with us if we're going to keep the twins with us. If anyone sees the twins later on the tour without Sooyun it's going to raise some serious questions."

"Under any circumstances I'm guessing the news of the twins is going to feature prominently in any interviews you do for at least the next week, so you need some good answers to deal with it. Especially you Namjoon since almost all of your upcoming interviews are in English."

The manager paused to get the members' feedback but was met with silence.

Yoongi finally spoke up. "Is it just me, or does anyone else hate all of these options?"

"Yeah, I think I feel the same." Taehyung confirmed. He had gone from furious to dejected in just a few minutes, suddenly realizing that this was going to be harder than he expected.

"This week is one thing" Namjoon said, "but what about the rest of the tour? People are going to be constantly watching for the twins. If Clara is seen anywhere near them it's going to be game over. She doesn't go out much but it's hard to imagine her or the twins ever leaving the hotel under the current circumstances. Even transfers to the airport are about to get really tricky. It's not that many people who are walking around with infant twins. And everyone knows what they look like."

Taehyung abruptly stood up. "If you'll excuse me, I need to go and check on Clara." Turning on his heel before anyone could respond he quickly slipped into the bedroom and closed the door tight behind him.

Walking over to the bed he pulled back the covers and crawled in behind Clara, pulling her close into his embrace. The entire situation was a nightmare. The best he could hope for was to fall asleep in his beautiful wife's arms and hope that when he woke up he discovered everything was just a bad dream.

Clara seemed to have fallen asleep, the overwhelming stress of the situation causing her body to shut down. Normally Taehyung felt he had to be strong for her but he was at his own breaking point. She was asleep so he allowed himself to truly feel the emotions and weep. Everything had been going so well. Turning this quickly felt unfair. And Clara in particular had suffered so much already, the last thing he wanted was to see her suffer more.

Before long Taehyung's shaking frame had woken his wife. Clara turned to face him trying to wipe away his tears.

"Please don't cry." Clara begged. "You are too perfect to cry." Seeing Taehyung cry was causing her to well up with tears too. She was no longer able to hold back her own grief at the loss of the boy's privacy and the never ending struggles she and Taehyung seemed to confront. She could only hope Taehyung would have the strength to continue to fight beside her, because if he ever gave up on her, she couldn't even imagine what she would do.