"I'm not sure about all of this, Koeun." Yeri heard a male voice say.
"I think it's the best, but afterall Yeri has the last say." Yeri knew immediately that Koeun was the one speaking. She couldn't mistake her best friend's voice even if she wanted to.
Yeri tried hard to pry her eyes open. She felt like she was ripping her eyelashes off, just from the sheer force of the pulling. Yeri could feel the tears forming under her tear ducts. She wondered what would happen if she started crying but she couldn't open her own eyes. Would the tears be pushed back into her head and cause liquids to form in her brain or would the tears stay by her eyes and cause them swell.
However, instead of the tears causing Yeri to die from some ridiculous means, they moistened her ducts which allowed her to finally open her eyes. She was crying hard and her vision was blurry. It took her a second to process Koeun and Jungkook standing in front of her. Jungkook looked like he hadn't slept for days and Koeun wore dark and thick bags under her eyes.
Yeri gave them both smiles and acted like she wasn't struggling with opening her eyes. Jungkook immediately dove towards her and grabbed her hand. "Yeri, I have been so worried."
Yeri was about to ask him where she was and why he could be worried about her. But she knew this place well. The hospital always gave a strong scent to her, so whenever she was inside of one, it was easily recognized. "Why am I here?" She asked in a dry voice.
Jungkook glanced at Koeun before he answered her question. "You passed out on the bus. Luckily, one of your fans was on the bus so they noticed right away when you didn't look well."
Yeri softly nodded but that gave her a minor headache. Yeri noticed at the corner of her eye that there was a clock on the nightstand. 3:28pm. "It looks like I slept through half of my birthday."
"Actually Yeri, it's the day after your birthday." Jungkook said in a soft voice. "You slept through all of yesterday."
"Oh." That was all Yeri could say. There was nothing else to say.
"I have one more piece of bad news, Yeri." Koeun started. "You have a schedule since the company didn't know about this when they scheduled it."
Yeri sighed. "I suppose there's nothing that I can do. What's the schedule?"
Koeun gulped hard. "Radio Star."
--
Yeri sat at the table without putting her hands on the table. She was incredibly unstable throughout the entire recording of the episode so far. She hoped that if she stayed quiet the entire time that they spoke to the other guests that they would forget that she was there.
"Yeri, you have been especially quiet for this recording thus far." One of the MC's pointed out.
Yeri's worst nightmares of being addressed were accomplished with the MC saying that. She nervously ran a finger through her hair in hopes that it will appear that she's just shy. "Ah, yes."
"You have a lot of interesting things to talk about though." Another MC said as he glanced down at his notes that the show writes for him. "It says here that you trained at SM for a long period."
"Ah, really?" Kyuhyun asked. "I never knew you though."
Another MC spoke up and pointed at Kyuhyun. "That's because you only had eyes for Seulgi."
Kyuhyun blushed and Yeri was nothing but thankful that they took the edge off of her, even if it was only for a split second. Then they finally moved their attention back to her. "Well, I had been training for 4 or 5 years when Red Velvet was formed. I wasn't chosen for the group, so I just assumed that they wouldn't want me for another 4 years. At the time, training for 9 years was really unappealing to me."
"It's understandable how you could think that." The first MC said. "So what did you do after?"
"Another friend from SM left with me and we just did normal things. Got jobs and tried to support ourselves even though we didn't have much of an education." Yeri explained. She took a long breath out. She momentarily congratulated herself for her work thus far.
"What kind of work did you get?" Kyuhyun asked.
That's when Yeri didn't want to talk anymore. "Well, my friend, Koeun who you may know from our group, worked as a singer-waitress in a cafe."
"But what about you, Yeri?" The MC asked. He looked down at his notes again. "Isn't it true that you worked at a fortune teller clinic?"
Yeri gulped. "Yes."
"And how were you scouted again? From Jellyfish, I mean." The first MC asked.
"Koeun and I were attending the cafe that she worked out and suddenly a scout found us and we signed to Jellyfish." Yeri said as smoothly as possible.
"Why did you leave Jellyfish?" The last MC asked. He seemed to notice that Yeri was hesitant to answer the question so he took a second to explain himself. "You told us why you left SM, so I thought it was only fair that you said why you left Jellyfish."
"There was an incident involving a former client of mine." Yeri started slowly. "Jellyfish had plans for a comeback and instead of following up on them, they cancelled them. They didn't have faith that we could move past this scandal so that's why 99 Line broke into two."
The MC's and even the guests were in awe of Yeri's honesty. She wondered if she had been to honest.
"What about your relationship? Can you tell us anything about your involvement?"
Yeri's mood seemed to light up when they mentioned Jungkook. She smiled shyly and shook her head. "We like to remain private."
"Only one more question." The oldest man cleared his throat. "We know that you have said many things regarding your psychic abilities. Is there any way that you can show them to us?"
Whatever monetary bliss that Yeri encountered before had disappeared at once. "I-I uhh..." Yeri didn't know how to explain this to them. "I actually recently lost my powers."
The group looked at her blankly and theu quickly moved to the next guest. Why was honesty never the best policy when it comes to Yeri?
--
Yeri arrived to Jungkook's apartment when a heavy heart. The episode of Radio Star just aired and Yeri wasn't very happy. She hoped that the show would've cut the last question from the show entirely but instead they emphasized that part during the whole broadcast. Yeri's blank stares when others were talking were shown many times throughout the broadcast and her own segment took up half of the show, even though it was only a 15 minute interview.
Jungkook invited her to his apartment directly after he watched the episode for himself. He knew Yeri too well at this point. He knew that she would want to see what netizens were saying about her, and he knew that it couldn't have been good. So he envisioned inviting her over to eat so that she could be focused on the food instead of the internet.
As soon as Jungkook noticed Yeri in his apartment, he moved towards her. She was facing the living room, probably expecting to see him in there, when he came behind her and threw his arms around her waist. Yeri smiled brightly and tried turning around so that she could face him, but Jungkook held his arms tightly.
He lay his head on her left shoulder and whispered into her ear, "What took you do long?"
Yeri cleared her throat. "No reason."
Jungkook felt the side of Yeri's cheek grow warm, which was a sign of her getting flustered. He giggled in her ear and Yeri got out of his grasp. "Why did you invite me?"
Jungkook shrugged as Yeri through her hands behind his neck. "Do I need a reason to see my girlfriend?"
Yeri shook her head but bit her lip. "We need to be more careful. I don't want the press to know where you live. Promise me that we will meet outside of the apartment next time, alright?"
Jungkook nodded and Yeri blushed. It seemed like forever since they last saw each other. She almost forgot how handsome he was.
The romantic air was interrupted by a sizzling sound from the kitchen. It didn't take long for Jungkook to run from Yeri's arms and into the kitchen to see that his stew had boiled over. As Jungkook was trying desperately to fix his mistake, Yeri pulled out her phone.
Jungkook didn't notice this action since he was beating himself up for ruining the mood with his own foolishness. As he was cleaning the surface of the oven, he noticed what Yeri was doing and quickly moved towards her.
He glanced at the article and much to his dismay, it was an article about Yeri on Radio Star. She was already reading the comments when Jungkook grabbed the phone from her. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
Jungkook didn't need to say anything. He immediately hugged Yeri tightly as she cried harder and harder. Whenever she seemed to calm herself down, she remembered another death threat from her comment about her boyfriend came into her mind.