BEHIND THE SCENES

chapter 55: to love, to hate

Chungha was taken aback. "Ya-"

"Do whatever you want, Kim Chungha-" Hoseok grabbed his water flask and got up from his seat. "I don't wanna care any longer. Whether you go or not, it doesn't bother me."

And Hoseok stormed off, leaving Chungha completely baffled.

-•-•-

"Wah-" Yuqi nudged Jieun in her side with a cheeky grin when she came to work later that afternoon. "Unnie, I noticed that you and Jungkook-ssi came in together this morning. I was so shocked I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. What's going on?"

Jieun froze. The secret that they were living was meant to be kept between Seokjin, Jungkook, Jennie and her - that's all. She had to keep it from Yuqi no matter what, despite how much of a social butterfly she was.

"Ah, it's nothing-" Jieun lied, as she let out a nervous chuckle. "It's nothing at all. We met outside the building, on the way here."

Yuqi frowned. "I'm pretty sure I saw you alighting from the same car though? It was clearly the car Seokjin-oppa always uses to drive JK around in..."

"Ah, yeah!" Jieun laughed loudly. "Of course, that's what I meant! I took the bus here, and Seokjin-oppa saw me from a distance outside the building and decided to pick me up to drive in. That's exactly what I was saying."

"That's weird." Yuqi furrowed her eyebrows as she let out a confused laugh. "That must have been a pretty short distance...?"

"Yeah, it was!" Jieun was breaking out in cold sweat - she really should have been more careful earlier today. "But Seokjin-oppa insisted, so there's no way I could refuse. You know how it is sometimes, right?"

Jieun stared intently at Yuqi, begging her to accept her excuse. Yuqi frowned and thought for a while, before Jieun saw the puzzlement disappear from her face and an understanding smile spread across her face instead.

"That's true, Seokjin-oppa is a nice guy, after all."

"Exactly!" Jieun let out a huge sigh of relief as she turned around and focused on cleaning the make up brushes. "There's nothing between us, Yuqi-ya. Nothing more than what you and him share, anyway. You don't have to read too much into it."

"That's true-" Yuqi said with a shrug as she joined Jieun by her side and helped her arrange the brushes nicely. "What could there possibly be between the two of you, anyway? We know how him and Jennie-ssi are a thing, and a really close one in fact."

Jieun knew all this, but she still felt her heart drop nevertheless.

"Oh, is that so?" Jieun struggled to maintain a smile. "They're really close? How do you know?"

"How do I know?" Yuqi flashed her a confused frown. "I don't know, it just seemed to me like they were the type that were slow-paced but would last a long, long time together..."

The smile faded from Jieun's face. "Right..."

"What are the two of you doing?" Jungkook entered the waiting room with Seokjin at that moment and spotted Jieun and Yuqi chit-chattering near the mirror tables. "Why is it that every time the both of you are on duty together, y'all always seem to be talking?"

"Jungkook-ssi!" Yuqi smiled brightly as she spun around and bowed a few times. "I'm gonna go get your favourite perfume ready - remember how it has been out of stock for the longest time? We managed to get our hands on it this week, heh. You're gonna love it, so I better hurry off now. Goodbye."