Trapped

56

Dara immediately turned to CL and frowned. Do they know that they were playing with dangerous water here? What if they slip up and Yang Hyun Suk gets mad because of it and put off their comeback for a later time? 

The fact that neither anyone of them could lie didn't give her any chance to calm down. 

They had survived until CL and the others revealed they were in a relationship out of pure effort to twist and hold onto bits and pieces of the stories they were giving out to the public to hide the bigger and clearer picture but talking about it voluntarily was a huge huge huge NO!

"CL-ssi, Dara-ssi just glared at you!" Heechul - who had an observant eye for reactions and things like that, exclaimed as he motioned to Dara with his cue card. "She was like this." He then followed how Dara frowned and looked at CL. 

"Eonnie!" CL faked shock as Minzy and Bom snickered beside both of them. 

"What?" Dara asked, not trying to deny the fact that she did slightly glare at her dongsaeng for saying something like talking about her love life without her permission.

"She's not even trying to deny it!" Hyungdon said with a good laugh. 

"Though I am curious." Kitty said as if she was contemplating on something. "The people who confessed that they liked or had a crush on Dara-ssi doesn't amount to only a small number. But why is she single when she's the eldest? Pardon me for asking this, but are you perhaps a picky person when it comes to guys?"

CL, Bom and Minzy couldn't help but laugh. This 3 year old idol was a good one. How did she come up with a conclusion so close to the real reason?

"Wae? Why are you laughing?" Heechul asked, already curious about everything. "Everyone, I can tell that out of all the people in this room, only Dara-ssi does not want to proceed with anything and would rather go home and sleep."

"Oppa!" Dara felt her cheeks burn. 

How should she react when her non-existent love life was being talked about on a show to be aired on national TV? 

"It's not Dara Eonnie who's picky. Everyone else was - and is still." When she noticed all the hosts' faces scrunch up in confusion, she chuckled before explaining. "I think we've mentioned it in a show or two. When we first started, we were YGE's only girl group and we were also the youngest group so I guess everyone had the impression that they had to pay extra attention to us.

"He came up with this rule or something that if someone wants to date either of the members, they had to go through a series of interviews and tests. Our sunbaes in the company are all men - except for Gummy Eonnie, so they had to go through our stylists, get a whole body check-up, go through our sunbaes one  by one, then - for the last stage, they had to be interviewed by sajangnim himself."

"Ah! That's right, I've heard you talk about it!" 

"Trust me when I say a lot of men tried courting Dara, the problem was people had a hard time passing Big Bang and Se7en, they were even stricter than 1TYM and JinuSean. A handful passed though, but less than half of them never made it through Sajangnim." Bom added with a scoff remembering how strict Big Bang was when an athlete wanted to court Dara.

"It's that serious? So how did Dara-ssi even date?" Heechul had already lost his interest on the topic of 2ne1's comeback and had all his attention on the only member in the group who was still on the market. "Don't even make excuses and tell me you didn't!"

"She dated!" Minzy chimed in with a smile. "She dated her exes for quite a long period of time."

Hyungdon - who had met 2ne1 by chance inside the YGE building because of Jiyong, stared at Dara for quite some time. 

When he first went to YG for the show he and GD were on, he had heard that Jiyong would be late because he still had to deal with an international artiste who was discussing a collaboration with him and YG. But when he arrived, Jiyong was already in the studio. 

He had asked about him meeting the international artiste but the man only gave him such a rubbish reply on cam that he had to ask him again after the shoot. 

"Be honest with me, why didn't you meet him? You could've asked for an autograph for me!" He had told Jiyong with creased brows. 

"Hyung, collaborating with him didn't feel right." He had answered with a straight face. 

They were so engrossed in their conversation that they didn't notice CL walking towards them.

"Oh? You're done?"  She asked before bowing down to greet and introduce herself to Hyungdon. 

"CL-ah, where are the girls?" Jiyong had asked. 

"Eonnie has a schedule." Noticing the worry Jiyong had been so desperately hiding, CL laughed and faced the man - who was older than her but acted so childishly when it came to a certain someone. "Don't worry, Jjangmae's with her. He won't have the opportunity to make a move on her again."

At the time, Hyungdon had no idea what they were talking about, but a few hours after he arrived home, news about a certain international artiste kissing a 2ne1 member - AKA Dara, went viral on social media. And that artiste was the very person he and Jiyong had talked about during the shoot. 

Because of that, he had his speculations so he tried catching the man a few more times. But he was careful and showed little to no reaction whenever he tried to trap him up until the scarf incident when they went to a market to look for costumes. 

Because of that, the idea that Kwon Jiyong was dating Park Sandara was glued into his mind, but he never once confirmed with Jiyong.

"Is she dating someone now?" Hyungdon asked out of the blue, shocking the girls - especially Dara. 

CL smiled and looked at her Eonnie who had been sending her eye signals that meant: DO NOT SPIll. 

 "No she's not."

CL's answer was like a breath of fresh air to Dara. She already had on a smile saying it was true - as it really was. But that smile disappeared as soon as CL said her next sentence. 

"But who knows? I heard there was someone trying to pass the tests."

~

"Can't we just have him write new songs for each of us?" Seungri asked as he tossed the ball he was holding then catching it as soon as it was near his face. 

"Can you sit down properly?" TOP hissed. "My couch can't handle someone like you, now can it?"

They were gathered at TOP and Bom's place to talk about what they were testing Jiyong with. 

Seungri grumbled a few words of complaint but still got up from his comfortable position on the couch and sat down properly - as per his Hyung's orders. 

"He's already doing that. Do you want to kill our leader Lee Seungri?" Taeyang raised a brow at the man before sipping on the fruit punch Bom had prepared for TOP before leaving for 2ne1's dorms. 

"Yah! Don't drink all of it!" Their eldest whined as he saw how Taeyang enjoyed the drink his wife had personally made for him. "That's mine!"

"Wah~ Such a stingy hen pecked husband." Taeyang murmured before placing the glass down half-heartedly. 

"So what are we going to do?" Daesung asked, trying to steer their conversation the right way before everyone forgets again. "Hyun Suk Hyung's so tired of reminding us over and over again that he allowed the Hyungs to give Jiyong their tests before us. We're lucky Se7en Hyung hasn't decided on a test yet too." 

"Ah!" 

All three of them turned to Seungri - who was grinning like a cheshire cat.  

"What is it?"

"I have an idea!"