Jihyun is stuck in a love scandal with someone whom she hates. This person is coincidentally the stubborn Riki on her debate team and her favorite mainstream artist at the same time. And Jihyun is just a college girl who gets wrapped into a dating s...
"It's nice to meet you, Jihyun. Though, unfortunate given the circumstances in which we are meeting." The staff member acquainting Mr. Lim started up. He was calmly sitting on the other side of the clean black table, staring back at her. The room was one of many in the HVBE building but strictly on the first floor near the simple rooms like the open team rooms on the same floor. It was primarily occupied by the large cafe and populated along with the small restaurant closest to the entrance, both of which seemed to be set only for trainees, staff, and idols.
"It's nice to meet you too," she responds, looking about the room before she hesitates to take a seat before him. She was pretty calm despite who she was in the face of, which was surprising even to herself because she had half expected to be on the verge of throwing up from the nervousness.
"We both are aware of this scandal that is going around so I'll skip around it. What I want to address is our company's take on how we solve this issue the best way possible."
"I was told." And I think your idea is shit, but she doesn't say that. "I just do not understand why you decided to ignore it instead of just saying that we aren't dating." It's a pretty dumb move for such a quote-on-quote smart company, but she doesn't say that either.
"Well, I'm glad that I don't have to explain that either then, but, Jihyun, we are not choosing to ignore this issue, we are choosing to acknowledge it and let it settle before making a statement that probably will not do well on the current audience."
"But it can also settle after a statement is released, no?" She asks. To her, it all seems like stupid decisions because she could easily argue why she could make a better decision than them. It was angering because it felt like she was being targeted or that she was being forced to take all of the temporary blame until they wantedto make a statement, but that was the power of being a lucrative company, no?
"That is true, but now given the image spreading, it will be hard to without garnering people who are willing to invade privacy to figure out who this couple is as well, idol or not."
The reasoning makes sense, but that second statement means that they knew that her idea was smarter and a better option but ignored that solution just so the problem to get worse. Whoever hired them is stupid and whoever is the person who made the decision should get fired. She exhales loudly.
"It would be beneficial for this issue that you make a post stating that the two of you broke up."
"What?" She was beyond confused, if they wanted that, why wouldn't they make an official statement about it instead of making her do it when so many people wouldn't believe her? She narrowed her eyes at the man.
"It can be more authentic for you to make a statement rather than us given that we have the intention to protect our artist. A post you make will be more realistic than a statement of ours, so we would appreciate it if you did."
Jihyun stands up out of the chair and pushes it in. It felt like none of them were putting some thought into this, the company would get more trust than she ever did so they should do it, but if they were keen on not doing anything then she shouldn't waste her time at all. She says nothing but feels like she at least left the room with the last word, no.
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Like an understanding friend, Rohee hadn't minded when Jihyun told her about what happened and had even told Jihyun to go relax at home instead of worrying about it given what had happened. Jihyun felt bad about ditching their hangout, but Rohee reassured her that they could hang out another time before playfully scolding Jihyun into taking a nap once she had arrived home.
She did that, actually, it wasn't easy for Jihyun to purposefully take a nap but she fell asleep as soon as she had tucked herself under the blankets. Well, after she had to bear with entertaining her little brother until her mom was finished with preparing his food. Kids, am I right?
By the time she had woken up, it was pretty late in the evening, Jihyun didn't care too much about what time it was seeing as it was the weekend anyway, but the sky outside was a familiar dark blue as nighttime approached. She shoved the blanket off of her legs and stepped down onto the carpeted floor beneath her.
There were a lot of notifications on her screen, messages, and links, it was a bit weird. She had been so used to having only one or two unread messages while the other banners were from the very minimal games she had on her phone, but now it was a variety and she regretted ever wanting more message notifications in the past. Despite that, she unlocked her phone and carefully clicked through a few of them: aka the first one she noticed with a link attached to it.
Upon tapping on the link, a website spawned on her screen and the title made her groan aloud before she took notice of the photo attached.
Jihyun caught talking to a staff member of Shiru's company HVBE, speculations of them dating appear once more.
