Layover

3

"This doesn't look good for our brand. Any idea who leaked the video?"

Suni thinks back to the question Bang PD asked her and Tae at the company office a few days ago. Who could it be? she thinks to herself. Someone in the dressing room. Someone on the staff? And how did they follow me to Tae's apartment? How did they know?

Suni's roommate, Yuna, enters their kitchen and goes to check the rice cooker. Upon opening it, she lets out a contended, "Wua!" She scoops out some rice into a bowl. Then she serves herself some galbitang soup and sits down next to Suni at the table. "Good morning, roomie. How are you?"

"Mmm...not bad..." Suni frowns. "But not good."

Yuna squeezes the hand of her good friend. "The video? I wouldn't worry too much about it. Scandals happen all the time in K-pop. They go away eventually." She watches Suni silently pick up some rice with her chopsticks. "Hey, have you read the comments online?"

"Yeah, good stuff," Suni says sarcastically.

"Well, I read some netizens posts saying, 'If you're mad Tae has a girlfriend, then you can't call yourself ARMY.' See, you have their support!"

"I guess," Suni manages finally. "I saw one that said, 'I love Taehyung. I would be happy for him if he had a girlfriend.'"

"And if fans are mad, they should be mature and leave him alone!"

"I'm more worried about the company. And Tae's reputation there."

Yuna holds the bowl up to her mouth and asks before slurping, "What did BigHit decide to do?"

"They're going to post a fake video admitting that it was photoshopped." Suni chews her food thoughtfully. "They couldn't trace the account of the original post so they hope this will work. The OP can't deny it without revealing themselves."

Yuna's doe eyes get bigger. "The company should be happy the comments are mostly favorable. Anyway, there's no such thing as bad publicity."

"Says the girl who's studying to be a journalist." Suni narrows her eyes at Yuna. "Ya! It's not you is it?" She fake punches her roommate in the arm playfully.

"I would never do that. You know I love you," Yuna professes, turning in her chair to give Suni a big hug.

The two share a smile before Suni's phone pings! an alert. She receives a text from Tae letting her know he's on his way. Yuna taps her on the shoulder with an "Uh-oh!" and shoves her own phone in her face. Suni pulls back to focus on the screen open to the Twitter app with various tweets of "throwing up" emojis and "#StylistSucks."

Suni's face falls so fast it makes a whoosh! sound. She is justifiably angry and the need to seek revenge clouds her mind. Suddenly her chest muscles tighten and her heart races, signaling a panic attack. It wasn't new to her, having had these when her parents divorced years ago. So she excuses herself from the kitchen and holes up in her bedroom for a few minutes doing her breathing exercise of counting backwards from 5...4...3...2...1...

~~~~~~~

Later that day, she shows the tweets to Tae when he visits. "Aish. I didn't see those," he says, as he sits next to her on the living room couch.

"What do you mean those? There's more?" Suni asks, furrowing a brow.

"Oh...did you see the posts on Weverse?"

Tae pulls out his phone and the screen shows a picture of Tae and Suni in the dressing room and another picture of a gun with the caption "Good night stylist." She gasps. Her head falls back slowly as she looks up at the ceiling, feeling a headache coming on, tears welling up in her eyes.