Renjun snatched her phone, swiping the screen to zoom the image sent,"What- is that supposed to be you??With..Who the hell is that?"
The picture contained two persons, assumingly a boy and a girl, both wearing dark clothings and are seemingly conversing while sitting across each other in a Cafe which made it look like they were...
Dating..
In secret..?
With her brows furrowed close, stared down at it with pure confusion and worry written on her face, she felt a tap on her hand.
"亲..That's not me..", the voice sinking as every syllable left his mouth and brows twitching in annoyance.
Confirmation hit Chenle just a second ago that it was in fact her, after seeing the familiar ring on her fingers that was caught on the picture.
But indeed he's correct, the guy is in fact, not him.Although judging by the clothes Jae was wearing and her hair, it happened just today so it couldn't be him.
Clearing his throat, alongside the thick air surrounding his room, Renjun decided to speak up,"I know you're not happy with this Chenle-ah but did you just call her with an endearment?"
He did.
How Hyunjae's heart dropped hearing it, yet ofcourse hearing the words that came after ruined it.
"I remember it now!It was a while ago!", Hyunjae clamored, snapping her fingers as her debunking down her rigged memory lane came to a success.
She's not really that type of person to remember things her brain considered unimportant, so it took a while.
Meanwhile Chenle's pout never left, feigning indifference as thoughts rambled in his mind with questions.
Is she dating somebody now?
Is she really meeting up with that guy?
Who's that guy?
Holding Chenle's hand, she flashed him a comforting smile to which the eldest rolled his eyes at.
"A while ago, I bought Jisung boba..Remember that Renjunie oppa?", the said boy nodded his head in agreement, waiting for the rest, "While I was waiting for it..There was this guy- What's his name again??Ji..Ji..Jiyeon!Majjayo!So Jiyeon-ssi was you know kinda uh...creepy..He just sat there and was like what's my name and all that", she explained, moving her right hand around for added effect while her left one remained held by Chenle.
"I answered him that I was taught to not you know talk to strangers!But then my order was done and the name I gave them was Chohee and so this Jiyeon was all 'nice name' blah blah blah", she continued to ramble, putting air quotations.
Clapping his hands, Renjun smiled victoriously, "I know I raised you well!"
Chenle now visibly unamused, his pout turned into a frown and his brows furrowing further after hearing what happened.It ticked him off how that guy Jiyeon acted and how a random number just straight out sends picture of it.
Who wouldn't be weirded out by that?
"He didn't recognize you?Did he try anything else?", he asked, still wearing his infamous intimidating look that'd be known to 'scare' some people who aren't familiar with him and his fun personality.
Hyunjae shook her head in return, blankly staring at her phone which was still in Renjun's hand.
Pursing her lips, she mumbled,"Should we tell manager-nim?", they knew it'd be trouble if a dating rumor would drop specially during their days of promotion, and when they just got in national news for a recent sasaeng attack.
And those were just some things that went on with Hyunjae, what about the recent rumors the others were involved with?
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Taking in a sharp breath, Taeyong flailed his arms around exasperatedly,"We literally can't have any peace even for a single week huh?", turning to the girl who had her head hung low and fidgeting while sitting across them,"Seriously Lee Hyunjae?Are you for real right now?You went out?On your own?Like wh-"
"That fucking bastard- what's his name?Jiyeon huh?Can't take a simple back off", Doyoung interjected, grabbing a throw pillow and flung it to the floor which caused a semi-loud thud.
Looking up, she bravely spoke up to fend for herself,"I just wanted to buy myself something without having any..Problems with security..", ofcourse that was more than half truth.Jae was never the type to be held back.
She wants freedom?No one would help her get it?She'd do it on her own.
She's known for being the rule-breaker, that's pretty much who she is, period.
And clearly the idea of being free from the Sora made her even more reckless.I mean, one of her fears that are clearly the closest to her was in no way able to get to her anymore.
The other half of it was clearly her wanting to do some favor for Jisung, whom she really considered her sibling(more like twin).Well she saw it as the only way she could lift his mood and she took it.
She decided to talk about what happened to the entirety of 127 the day after the next, since she was after finishing their filming of Resonance for more than half of the day and then finishing the recordings of the other songs that would go in her album.
Clearly they weren't liking this whole scenery.Their 'elderly brother' and 'fatherly' instinct kicking in right when they heard the words 'I have a problem'.
And when that happens, worried would be considered an understatement.
Clicking his tongue, the older Jae shook his head in disapproval,"Jae we definitely made it clear already that you, out of all of us is the one who needs atleast somebody to go with when you go out THE MOST", he put a clear emphasis to the words: the most.
Usually it's Jaehyun who'd be in her side and ease up the other's fired up selves by saying it was nothing and all is fine, well looks like even he wasn't in on it.
It took nearly 2 hours, as counted by Haechan who was snickering by the side.
It had to stop for a moment since Hyunjae was already whining about it being enough scolding for what happened which then resulted to another half an hour of scolding which ended with everyone agreeing to not tell any of their managers, in exchange of Hyunjae to strictly avoid going out for the rest of the month.
They took quiet a long discussion with it, let's just hope it was the right decision to go with.
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[Hyunjae's POV]
I groaned one more time as I fight off the urge to scratch the choker I was wearing.It's making me look like a dog in a collar I don't like it.
My debut stage clothing with Aespa is definitely different from what I wore back then at The 7th Sense or Chewing gum.This was more girly?classy?stylish? than the cool style T7S had and the childish theme of the other one.
I mean I like it.It's like debuting with 3 concepts, 3 sides.
"Aigoo I didn't know our maknae brought her puppy in here", I frowned even more after hearing a chorus of them cooing and some even patting the top of my head.
I hate it already I wanna go home they're making fun of me.
I huffed, slouching at the black leather chair infront of the vanity mirror as one of the stylists started to remove our makeup.
Wow we actually just finished the recording of the debut stage huh.I scrolled through twitter, laughing inwardly as the trending hashtags for both in the Philippines and South Korea was the #LeeHyunjaeprodebuter and other related to that.
In a span of nearly a week since that Jiyeon incident few things had happened already.Black Mamba ranked as the debut mv who has the largest view catered in the length of 24hrs.I heard it was 21+ million views which was awesome.Then we also filmed the dance practice which would probably released any day soon.Not to forget the other schedules that came along as being part of Work It.
Tomorrow, I'll be out with the Misfit unit and other units to film the performance for the mnet show.Then after that, I'll be starting to film for NCT V's music video.
Be a part of NCT they say.It'll be fun they say.
Clearly the only fun thing I got from being part of it was having this family, and meeting Chenle.
To be honest, something about that Jiyeon just feels off.It just doesn't sit right to me.Everything doesn't.
My bullshit radar is definitely picking up some bad vibes from him.
I don't think the way we met and the unknown number sending pictures about it was a mere coincidence at all.
...Or maybe it's just my PTSD..?
>>ᶠᵒʳᵗʸ⁻ˢᵉᵛᵉⁿ ᵖᵘᵇˡⁱˢʰᵉᵈ ʷⁱᵗʰ ¹⁴⁹² ʷᵒʳᵈˢ<<
Hope you guys are not gettin' bored with the story lol stay safe y'all💚Wish me luck on tomorrow's exams🙆♀️
-author
*this chapter has been proofread and undergone minor editing.