Cold || Cai XuKun

Found Out

Surprise!! Double update :)

Just some FYI:

❅ The week that this all happens (the audition + drama) is during Spring Break

❅ Cai Xukun is staying at the dorm because he's taking part in this story's version of Idol Producer

❅ Irene is staying at a hotel near the Idol Producer area

     "Why the heck are you here?" I demanded. My arm was holding the door open, my brain ticking like a clock. A few more seconds and I was about to let go and have the heavy door smash her graceful nose into her pretty eyeballs.

     "Woah woah woah, why the hostility?" She held her hands up mockingly. Why the hostility? Seriously? This coming from the girl who stole my friend's songs to rise to fame. This coming from someone I used to idolize, before I found out she had used someone to get to the top. I cross my arms and watch her with a silent glare.

     "Irene, we need to have a...talk," she says, a malicious smile spreading across her face. "You would find it quite important."

     "Oh yeah?" I scoff. Despite that, I reluctantly let her inside my hotel room. "How did you even find me?"

     "I have my ways." She flipped her brilliant red hair over a shoulder. Setting herself comfortably down on the couch, she asked, "so, what's it like?"

     I was confused. "Huh?"

     "What's it like knowing that two people truly care about you, and you're lying to the both of them?"

     My eyebrows furrowed. "Sorry?"

     "You're cheating!" Autumn snaps, leaping up. She stabs her finger in my direction. "I saw what you did. I know what you're doing. You were with Cai Xukun."  

     I blanched. How-?

     A vile smugness took over Autumn's features.

     "Mhm. I have it all recorded right. here." She waved her phone in front of my face tauntingly. I wanted to swat it away. She tapped the play button on the glass screen.

     To my horror, the entire event played right before my eyes on the tiny screen. A recap of the risky moment. You could clearly tell it was me standing next to Cai Xukun. Especially when I back away and turn around and run off in the opposite direction. I couldn't believe my eyes. Autumn had recorded the whole thing.

     My eyes, now filled with terror, slowly rise up to meet Autumn's. A smirk tugs at her lips, as I expect there to be. 

     "And what are you going to do?" I whisper. She doesn't respond right away, and the suspenseful silence hangs in the air. So quiet that you could've heard a pin drop. She starts laughing. The vibration shakes her shoulders as she laughs quietly. My heart starts hammering in my chest. I'm scared. 

     "Nothing." She bops me on the nose playfully. I recoil, jerking back immediately. The carefree action only perturbs me further. "You're the one who's going to be doing anything." She starts circling me like a prowling predator, her hands folded behind her back in a relaxed demeanor. "You're going to need to stay away from Cai Xukun." Her eyes narrow and glint with ambition. "It must've been so hard to get close with him, at long last. I congratulate you. But you better get away from him before you start hurting him." Hurting him? I'm suddenly dizzy from how familiar her words sound. Why? Because I had said the same things to myself. 

     "Don't you see? You're already hurting him," Autumn says. Her words were as smooth as velvet, made to be consumed by the mind. It wasn't hard to fall into her trap, which I had already done. I started to believe what she was saying.