We spent the off days just enjoying our time together. We went to the botanical gardens where we took cute photos together and relaxed. I then convinced Chan to go on a ghost tour, on which he was terrified the entire time. I enjoyed it, though, and spent the next couple of hours jumping out behind corners to scare him even more.
We joined Seungmin and Mana for dinner the first night. I was surprised that their hookup after the bar had them so attached to each other already. I was glad, though, because I had someone I could talk to about everything.
Chan even let me break my contract, and I was able to explain everything to her about how we had gotten together. Knowing the full truth definitely made her more sympathetic to him. She was even beginning to like him.
The second night, we had a group meal with all of the guys. They rented out a dining space on a rooftop restaurant so they could be themselves. Seungmin invited Mana and was flirty and cute. Han and Lee Know didn't have to hide. I wanted that to be permanent for them. Han even seemed to be glowing under Lee Know's attention and was more social than I'd ever seen him.
Even Hyunjin, Felix, Changbin, and I.N. had some weird flirty foursome going on at the end of the table. Felix would flirt with Changbin who would flirt with Hyunjin who would flirt with I.N. and Felix who would both flirt back with him. It was hilariously confusing, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves.
I wanted them to always be this happy. At the show tonight, Chan and I would do our parts to try to remediate some of it for them. I hoped the fan service filtering worked. Even more so, I hoped the fans wouldn't still try to take advantage of Chan.
We'd done the bus walk, and Mana just walked in through the front door with Dmitri and met us backstage. We didn't want to make her go through everything I'd had to. We could keep her secret, at least until she and Seungmin decided how serious this really was.
Chan and I were in his dressing room, and he was tying his boots when there was a knock at the door.
"JYP is here to see you," Dmitri told us. "Both of you."
My mouth went dry. Hadn't he just been in the States? What could this possibly be for?
Chan stood and grabbed my hand to calm me, noticing immediately how scared I was. "It'll be okay?" he whispered.
We followed Dmitri to JYP's room. My heart was racing, and I felt more nervous than I ever had in my whole life. Dmitri left us inside with the devil himself and closed the door. The room felt like a cage.
JYP turned around to face us. My stomach twisted at the sight of him. He said nothing for a moment while staring at our adjoined hands.
"I hear Chan has filtered the fan service for tonight," JYP accused. My heart stopped. How had he found out?
"That's not against the rules," Chan defended.
"Not technically. But why did you do it? So bored of Ella already?" he smirked.
"No," Chan replied, but he didn't offer an alternate reason. He couldn't without giving us away.
"I've heard rumors that you're trying to end the fan service."
My stomach was in knots. How had he found that out too? I squeezed Chan's hand nervously.
"That's not going to happen," JYP informed him. "It's part of your job."
"How long will we be expected to be exploited for the pleasure of others? We're not just idols. We're people," Chan argued. I was proud of him and rubbed my thumb against his hand to let him know.
"If you continue to mess with the fan service, you won't like the news that comes out about you two," he threatened, ignoring Chan's questions.
"We haven't done anything," I spoke up. What was he going to do? Release more audio of us having sex?
"Haven't you?" JYP asked and pulled up a voice memo on his phone. He pressed play.
"Stop! Stop!" I heard myself shout. It had been from when I was having my panic attack on the bus. My chest tightened. I'd never heard how scared I sounded during an attack before. No wonder Chan had looked scared for me.
"What's done is done, Ella," Chan's voice replied lowly. Hearing it made my body go stiff and on defense.
There was a gasp in the audio that I recognized as my own. My eyes fluttered with tears.
"Stop! Chan, stop!" I shouted again.
I was struggling to breathe as I listened to the audio. It too closely resembled what I'd gone through in real life. It was as though he knew the whole story and had spliced together something that would hurt me as much as possible.
Shit. He probably had someone record me telling my story to Chan for this exact reason.
"That's not real," Chan growled as he ground his teeth together.
"It doesn't matter if it's real. The suggestion that it's real and the fact that you both are identified by name will be enough to ruin your reputation."
I couldn't catch my breath and my ears rang loudly.
What's done is done, Ella.
Stop! Chan, stop!
The actual incident that had happened blurred together with the falsified one. I imagined trying to push Chan off of me. Imagined it was him that held me down.
Stop! Stop!
What's done is done, Ella.
But during the actual incident, my name hadn't been said. This wasn't real. The audio replayed over and over in my head, and I stared blankly ahead, trying my best not to reveal the fact that I was shattering inside trying to decipher truth from lie.
"Ella," Chan whispered. "Ella?"
I blinked a couple of times, and his face appeared where the wall I had been staring at had been.
I looked around and realized that JYP was gone. Where was he?
"I'm so sorry that you had to hear that," Chan muttered.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward into his chest. I felt numb. Every time JYP did something, it was worse than the last thing.
"We can't end the fan service while he has that," I mumbled. Chan wrapped his arms around me protectively.
"I know," he muttered. "I don't think you heard, but he took me out of the fan service rotation tonight. I don't know why, or what he plans to do."
"Seungmin," I realized. "He'll pick Seungmin because we've rigged it for him. We need to warn him."
Chan nodded but didn't move. He continued to hold me as though he knew I'd nearly fallen apart, knew I needed to be held a little longer.
I relished in the safety and warmth of him for a little while, taking deep breaths to reground myself into reality. I could hear his heart and focused on that for a moment before wrapping my arms around him, too.
"Better?" he asked in a quiet voice.
I nodded and pulled away.
"Let's go tell Seungmin," I sighed.
We found him in his dressing room with Mana. We could hear them laughing together as we walked down the hall, and I hated that we'd have to ruin that.
Chan knocked, and they shouted for us to come in. He explained what had happened, and Mana moved to sit beside me as Chan explained the audio we'd heard. For my sake, he didn't go into detail.
"We think he'll have you chosen tonight," Chan finally informed them.
"Well then, Mana can just do what Ella was planning to do," Seungmin said.
"The fans don't know about Mana. There's no way to be sure they'll respect her," Chan argued.
"We can try," she offered.
"If you want to," Chan seemed reluctant to let her put herself in the situation. "They may not be very welcoming to someone crashing their date. It might not end well."
He laid out for her exactly what could happen as I hadn't had the option or the prep. Our first date had been brutal because of the fans' unwillingness to accept that he was taken.
"I want to. Especially since the alternative is that he gets forced to do something he doesn't want to."
"Okay. Then, you two will see if it works."
It was decided. We left them alone to plan and to enjoy the rest of their time together before the show.
Chan and I went to his dressing room where I sat quietly on the counter while he got ready. I wasn't in the mood to talk much.
"Show time," someone shouted.
"Can I stay backstage today?" I asked. I didn't want to be in the crowd while I was still so shaken from the voice memo.
"Of course, baby," Chan replied sweetly. He kissed my forehead and then headed out to get in place.