The Cutting Edge

030

Hyunwon stared at Kara incredulously, not quite sure if he had been hallucinating. "What on earth are you talkin—"

"I know this comes rather suddenly, but it's just that Hyunwon has always been a very private person so we decided not to make our relationship public. But since we're going to be married soon, we thought it would be a good time to share the news with everyone," Kara said to the reporters, who were all going into overdrive with this latest reveal.

When Hyunwon opened his mouth to say something else, Kara squeezed his arm tightly, as if to plead with him not to say anything.

Ryu did nothing to help matters by giving Hyunwon a hearty smack across the shoulders, booming, "You sneaky son of a bitch! So it seems like your proposal was successful after all? Why didn't you tell me sooner!"

Hyunwon groaned. Ryu was one of the few who knew about his relationship with Kara, but he hadn't yet told the man about what happened with the proposal because he had been too distraught after that to want to talk about it. Ryu, being a fairly sharp tool in the shed, took the hint and never asked him about it either, so eventually he forgot that it might have been a good idea to have told Ryu about the break up. That said, he would never have anticipated a moment like this.

While Ryu and Kara's manager were happily entertaining the barrage of questions from the eager reporters, Hyunwon leaned over and hissed into Kara's ear, "What are you trying to do? I thought we've already been through this before."

"Please, Won," Kara begged. "Just help me out this once."

He turned away, running his fingers through his hair in exasperation. There was no turning back now, especially when they were in front of so many people. If he openly denounced everything that Kara had just said, then it would spark a huge controversy in the entertainment industry—as if this piece of news wasn't shocking enough in itself.

"We'll talk about this afterwards," he said gruffly, grabbing Kara by the arm and quickly turning to head towards the building to escape from this paparazzi trap. Just as he turned, he thought he caught a glimpse of a familiar face in the crowd, but when he took a second look, the person was gone.

Hyejin was walking back towards the back of the building in a bit of a daze. The crowd at the red carpet had been enough to overwhelm her, but what she had just heard from Kara's mouth had left her shell-shocked.

And he didn't deny any of it...

She should have seen it coming, but it didn't serve to lessen the shock either way. Now the whole world would know that Hyunwon was going to marry Kara Jung, and no one could deny that they made a picture perfect couple on the red carpet.

"Whoa whoa, what on earth!" Remington was exclaiming to no one in particular when she arrived back at the assembly point. He was staring at his phone intently, watching a slightly delayed telecast of the red carpet event. Looking up, he saw Hyejin walking towards him and asked, "Did you see what just happened? Was that for real?"

Hyejin simply walked right past him like a mindless zombie, going straight up the waiting bus without even acknowledging his question.

#

Later that night, when Hyunwon and Ryu returned to the hotel after the event, Remington immediately pounced upon his friend the moment he heard something move in the hotel room next door. Bursting into the room once the door was opened, the French man began with a spiel of French (which tended to happen only when he was extremely excited) before launching into his interrogation.

"Tell me everything. What happened on the red carpet? Are you and Kara seriously getting married? I thought you swore never to speak to her ever again!" Remington walked over to the window and lifted the curtain gingerly, shuddering when he saw the sight downstairs. "The reporters are still camping out. They probably won't leave until they get a sound bite out of you. They've already gotten the juicy bit of news from Kara, so they just need a statement from you to sell more tabloids."