"Keeping you as a trainee is useless because you are basically our ace and have the skills to even debut as a soloist, so I wanted you to join the girls of ResQ."
*To read this book you don't need to read the previous two as you will be able to unde...
The day after the showcase, it was time for the girls and me to finally start working on the duets, so we headed to JYP's office along with manager Yeongjae so JYP could show us the songs and also tell us who we would be doing them with.
Apparently, he had only managed to come to an agreement with SM, Starship and Pledis, so all of the duets would be with someone in one of those three companies, but we didn't know who it would be.
"Did you have fun at the showcase?" JYP asked us and we nodded. "I'm really sad about not being able to be there. Something really urgent came up just when I was about to head there and I missed the whole thing."
"I'm sure they will understand. You have things to take care of and can't be on top of everything at all times," Mika told him.
"Let's now talk about important matters now, shall we?" he said and turned his computer screen towards us.
In it, we could see pictures of Got7, Monsta X, Seventeen, EXO, Shinee and NCT, so we guessed we would be collaborating with people from those groups.
"Before we give the songs a listen, I wanted to hear your thoughts on the groups that the people you are collaborating with are in," JYP told us. "I believe Alix is close to some of them while the rest of you are close to others, isn't that right? What do you think about it, Alix?"
"By... by NCT do you mean WayV too or just the ones catalogued as NCT officially?" I asked him.
To be honest, I really didn't want to collaborate with any of the Chinese boys when I was having such trouble with my own feelings. I knew that adding Winwin to the mix wouldn't do me any good, so I hoped and prayed that he wouldn't be among any of the boys we would be collaborating with.
"Just the ones promoting in Korea," he said and I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding. "It's just Johnny and Haechan, to be precise, but let's not talk about that yet. What do the rest of you think about it?"
"I really like all of the groups you chose, so I hope this turns out as a great experience for us to learn from our seniors," Leah said.
"Please, show us the songs now. I really am excited!" Soojin said making all of us laugh.
Still, JYP obliged and began playing the tracks so we all could hear them.
"This first one is for Soojin, Lin, Jackson and Johnny. You will be releasing both an English version and a Korean version," he told us before he pressed play.
In all honesty, I really liked it and thought that it would fit all of them perfectly. I was very close to Johnny when I was in SM since he could speak English and I really wanted to see him again after that much time. He had been really supportive when I told him I wanted to leave the company and even encouraged me to do so since he had been training with me and seeing the way the staff and the other trainees treated me there. I didn't have that much trouble with the male trainees since they barely saw me as a threat, but the female trainees always hated me because, since I had started training before, I supposedly had a higher chance of debuting than them. That obviously wasn't accurate at all, but they still made my life miserable.
"Do you like it?" JYP asked Lin and Soojin and they both nodded eagerly. "I'm glad to hear that. Let's go to the next one now, shall we? I think this one could really fit Alix and-"
Just then, the door opened abruptly and JYP's secretary bowed while panting.
"Sorry, sir. I think you need to see something," he said.
"I'm busy at the moment," JYP told him. "Is it that urgent for you to come running?"
He then picked up his phone and quickly searched for something on it before handing his phone to JYP.
JYP immediately looked at me after seeing the picture with a raised brow.
"I did tell you you would end up with one of the Stray Kids boys, didn't I? It's literally a curse," he said.
"What are you talking about?" I asked him and picked up the phone to see what he was looking at.
Apparently, while I was talking to Jisung backstage, the other boys had decided to take a selfie. The problem was that you could see Jisung and me at the back of the picture holding hands and talking.
"I swear this isn't what you think!" I said while the other girls looked at the picture. "I'm not joking, we were just talking."
"Alix, you don't need to excuse yourself. Neither of you have dating bans and you can do whatever you want," he said chuckling.
"No, I'm being serious. We literally were just talking. We are nothing," I told him. "I would tell you if we were, I'm deadly serious."
"That isn't all, sir," his secretary said and scrolled down the article slightly up until there was another picture. "There's also this one. A fan apparently took it."
This time, the picture was from the day Jisung and I had gone out for the night and we were on the stairs by the bridge. We truly thought no one was there, but I guessed we shouldn't have been so careless.
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"Okay, explain that one too, then," JYP said with a smile.
The girls were so shocked by that one that they just turned towards me and looked like they had seen a ghost. Their gazes demanded answers but I really didn't know what to say.
Instead of saying anything, I just groaned and slammed my head on the table exasperated. There was no way I could explain it to him without sounding like a complete liar but we really weren't together.
"Just admit it, Alix. It really is okay," he said.
