Musi || 백현

+ forty

+ forty

Taeyeon ended up not submitting the pictures to the media.

Baekhyun had been relieved when he didn't because the fans already didn't like Narda very much, after all the drama of the previous year in which it had been thought that she was a sasaeng. He just knew they would take Taeyeon's side because the pictures didn't look good. Of course, what logical person would have taken Narda's side? Or who would have given her the benefit of the doubt?

She was just a girl teaching in Korea. Taeyeon was a kpop idol known by everyone and loved by all. People would first side with her before giving it a second thought.

But in the end, they remained just scenarios in his mind. Taeyeon had chosen to stay quiet and discarded the physical copies she had of the pictures. A few days after his live video, an envelope was slid under his door at the dorms when he was gone at practices. When he returned, he saw it and picked it up. It was something to him from Taeyeon. 

A little present, as a token of my apologies. I hope you can forgive me for being so selfish. -Tae

It had been written out in her neat handwriting and underneath the letter was a small memory card taped to the sheet of paper. It was probably the very same one where she had the pictures stores, and she was giving it to him to destroy. There was no guarantee that she hadn't just made copies elsewhere. But Baekhyun would trust her. He knew there would be no reason for her to send the letter and the card if she didn't know that it was the only existing copy. They hadn't even been very triggering photos. But in the kpop world, anything could lead to a dating rumor.

Time went by surprisingly quickly and before any of them knew it, it was time to travel to the Unites States for their American leg of Exoplanet 2. Baekhyun had been especially excited about visiting a certain city because he knew it was where his beloved Narda lived. He had been especially whiny about asking the managers to make her city a stop of their tour. But it hadn't taken so much convincing, since Los Angeles was a popular city to go to and they knew they had many kpop fans there. 

He had heard from Narda that she had been going to school already, and that she was doing quite well in her classes. Baekhyun didn't know how he would do it, but he had already promised that he would attend her graduation on May ninth of that year. Narda had assured that it was okay if he couldn't make it. But he really wanted to be there. He assured her it would be during a short break they'd have anyway. All he had scheduled during that time was filming for his role in the upcoming drama Moon Lovers. But he didn't have very many scenes, and he could slip away from rehearsals and filming for a few days.

In those few weeks, SM Entertainment had announced that Chanyeol would be releasing a mini album. The company had allowed him to produce the songs he had been writing (for Narda, no less) and compile them into an album. It was set to be released a month after their comeback in June, but the album name and the track list had been released already. Heaven, Hellfire. The theme was the contrast between falling in love, feeling like being in heaven, and being heartbroken, which was compared to hell fire.

One of his tracks had been released on SM Station, for the fans to get a feel of what his album would be like. The song was called A History in Your Hands, and held lyrics like, "At least say you'll stay one more night. I promise not to touch you, be sure of that. There is something I haven't confessed; every single one of my problems is named like you. And if you don't want to say where I went wrong, remember I have forgiven you many times. But in exchange, you simply say: I'm sorry, I don't love you. And you leave with our story in your hands." The moment Narda heard the song and heard the lyrics, she knew it was about her and she wondered if he still felt that way.