BEHIND THE SCENES

chapter 2: secrets worth keeping

"No need to be so impatient-" Jennie smiled as she jokingly patted Jungkook on the shoulder. "I'll get on when I want to, Jungkook-ah."

Jungkook swallowed hard, his facial expressions stone cold. "Cut the crap and get in."

"I said there's no need to hurry me-" Jennie clucked her tongue while still maintaining her smile. "Also, you should be regulating your facial expressions better, if you don't want to be given yet another warning from sajang-nim."

Jennie stood there for a few whole minutes, teasing Jungkook, but eventually hopped on when she got bored of it. Jungkook quickly hopped in right behind her and slammed the door behind them. And instantly, the mood changed. Jungkook sighed loudly and closed his eyes, rubbing them gently with the balls of his hands. The forced smile on Jennie's face faded as well, as she pulled out her lipstick and began to fix her make up in the mirror, massaging her tired facial muscles before she did so.

"You think I'm not tired?" Jennie asked softly, not even glancing at Jungkook. "I'm just as tired as you are, so can you stop taking out your frustration on me? Earlier, I saw that a camera was still on us so I had to act the way I did... It's been almost half a year - you should have learnt how to cooperate by now."

"Don't talk to me right now," Jungkook said coldly. "I need to rest for a while before I go out there and have to pretend to be head-over-heels with you all over again."

"Excuse you, I'm also a victim here-" Jennie slammed her pocket-sized mirror shut and frowned at Jungkook. "You make it sound like I'm head-over-heels over you or something. What on earth do you not understand? You always act like I'm the one leeching off you when in actual fact, both of us are just trying to make ends meet. It's honestly rather rude of you, I'm older than you after all-"

"Can you be quiet?" Jungkook's eyes fluttered open as he glanced at Jennie nonchalantly. "Stop pulling the age card whenever you have got nothing else to say. If you wanna complain, go complain to Yang sajang or something. I'm tired, can you let me have some peace and quiet for once?"

"Ya-" Jennie folded her arms. "Jeon Jungkook, do you know what people are saying about us because of how you're acting? I saw one forum saying we're a fake couple-"

"Well, yeah, that's because we are."

It was silent for a few seconds, as Jennie was stumped by Jungkook's words.

"Yeah, I know-" she continued after she tried to regain her composure. "But for the sake of both of us, you still shouldn't be..."

Jungkook reached into his bag and pulled put his headphones, put them over his head and closed his eyes as he allowed Jennie's silent cursing fade into the background.

"You disrespectful little-"

Jungkook had been labelmates with Jennie for over five years, but had only gotten to know her better around five to six months ago, when the CEO of their company very so randomly decided, "Hey! Let's start a dating rumour between these two and see if they will skyrocket in their popularity!" Well, Jungkook for one, was against this idea - and Jennie, though less obvious, made it clear she wasn't for it either.

They barely even knew each other, how were they supposed to act like they were in love when they clearly weren't? Jennie was an actress though, so perhaps, she may have no problem at immersing herself into her role - but it was a whole different ballgame for Jungkook. He wasn't an actor, and he loved keeping things real - he never saw the need to put up a false front for anyone, or for any reason. Besides, he hated lying to his fans, to the very few of them he had, anyway.

The most bizarre thing of all was the fact that this was their company's attempt at helping them gain popularity. This point simply blew Jungkook's mind because last he checked, dating scandals had ruined plenty of celebrities careers, when they were at their peak. However, their CEO reasoned that they really had nothing to lose at their level of popularity back then, and a dating scandal would only make them more well-known to the public. Jungkook found that ridiculous, but he was left with pretty much no choice but to agree.