The Explanation (Part 4 Coming Soon)

The Explanation Part 3

"You're very quiet."

Jungkook took Moon's hand but didn't answer her.

"Are you upset with me? About the pictures...you've barely said two words..."

"No, of course not. I'm furious - but not with you." Sadness seeped out of him. He looked towards the door, where Jimin stood talking to RM, updating him about their lack of progress on the apology video. He kissed her hand. "Do you remember the drive to the video shoot that day?"

"I remember what we did before we drove to the video shoot."

He actually smiled. "So do I. God, I needed you so badly, I always need you but that day...making love to you that morning was the last good thing that happened before everything went wrong."

"Don't..."

"Afterwards, you were so sick in the car on the way to the shoot, and it was such a long drive. I should've helped..."

"Tae took care of me, you didn't need to do anything."

"I should've been the one to hold you and clean you up after you were sick but I couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle anything, not the morning sickness, not the stress, from the moment we found out until... That's why all this happened, because I couldn't handle any of it."

"No, Kook..."

"We need to get moving guys." Jimin came back in the room, interrupting him. "If there's any chance of posting this thing and giving the fans time to watch it before the show starts, we need to do it now." He hit the record button on his way to the couch.

Moon took another deep breath in preparation. She wanted to tell Jungkook that he was wrong, that no one blamed him, but this wasn't the time. The camera and the clock were both waiting.

"Hi ARMY, this is going to be a short video. We're about to go on stage but it's important to us that we touch base with you, our beautiful ARMY, to tell you how much we appreciate you. We know a lot of you are confused and upset because of pictures that someone posted last night...we know how they look..." She inhaled slowly, forcing herself to slow down. "Thank you for defending us but the photos that were leaked yesterday, are real; they weren't altered and they aren't fake."

She looked at the playback screen and paused. The three faces that looked back at her all bore the strains of guilt. Jungkook wasn't the only one who blamed himself. All three porcelain statues seemed ready to crackle and dissolve at any moment, like a scene from one of their own videos.

"We don't know who took the pictures, although we have our suspicions, but that's not important right now. We have faith our company will deal with that. Right now our concern is you and how shocked you must be, and we know you want an explanation."

She looked at the laptop again, but instead of checking the playback window, she looked at the three photos beside it. On the right hand side of the screen were the three photos that were causing so much trouble. All three were in well lit, vivid HD detail, leaving nothing to the imagination. All three were hardcore and embarrassingly explicit. All three were of Moon having sex. With Jimin.

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The location was out in the middle of nowhere, north of the Arctic Circle, by the feel of it, and the farther they traveled, the worse the roads got. Every bump and rut sent a fresh wave of nausea through her, and worsened the pain of torn muscles from months of throwing up. If she didn't know better, she'd swear she'd broken a rib a few miles back. Moon was glad to lean into Tae and close her eyes but the long drive over back roads made her nausea almost unbearable and they had to keep pulling over so she could throw up.