It finally happened. I was in the spotlight. In the bad, controversial spotlight. With multiples clips from my deleted vlive showing up, people- mostly knetz started to ask questions.
Was it really a vlive the managers knew about?
Did Y/N sneak out to have her own vlive?
Was this just a publicity stunt to promote Feel Special?
Did I not want to be an idol anymore?
After lack of viewing streams and now ads popping up, is this just another way to get more attention?
And because of this, I was suspended, again. Well actually no. It felt like I was getting suspended but I just were given more restrictions this time.
"So now I can't even go out?" I looked over at Yongjin. He sighed with a nod as he put his phone back into his pocket. We sat in our living room while the other girls were either doing their own thing in their rooms and a few others were at the kitchen, either watching us or eating.
"You still can, you just have to be chaperoned by a manager from now on. Orders from Jinyoung hyung, they all think it's best if you lay low." He explained and I sighed softly. Too bad I didn't have the extra time to relax and calm down. We all had to get ready soon to go to our schedules, a live stage then a fansign. Then after that we had to go to Japan.
"Great." I forced a smile as I then dragged myself over to my room to get dressed.
"What happened?" Chaeyoung looked up at me. She currently sat on the bed with Momo and she too looked at me, worried from the frustration that built on my face.
"Nothing... I was told that I can't go out now without a manager as chaperone so that's fun." I said, opening the closet and grabbing a set of clean clothes from it.
"It can't be that bad, right? I mean, Yongjin's pretty lenient." Momo shrugged and Chaeyoung nodded, agreeing with her.
"He is, but not that lenient." I shook my head.
"What, you planning to flirt with another female idol yet again?" Chaeyoung raised her brow and I chuckled in disbelief, turning my head to them.
"That was one time." I argued and they all started to mock me, repeating my words. Okay yes I did flirt with another idol at another point but it was Yeri! How could I not fall for her? Then again, I did have my reason not to fall for anyone from SM. I'll tell that story soon don't worry. Just not now.
Eventually, we all went to the vans to go to the broadcasting station but during our ride, something very strange happened.
I went on my phone while I listened to music. The entire space in the car was quiet considering half of the girls were asleep and the other half were awake. Just as I was going to skip a song, someone started calling me. Of course it was an unknown number. Now the managers always told me to always ignore an unknown number but I just had to answer it. Curiosity kills the cat they say.
"Hello?" Just from the nervousness that coated my throat I could already tell this was a mistake.
"Hi..." I heard the man's voice through the other end and for some reason he was panting repeatedly. Yeah, I deeply regret this.
"Who are you?" I furrowed my brows.
"Your vlive. I need to have answers." Okay, this got really creepy, real quick. My eyes widened at the mention of my live and I rushed to end the call. I absolutely did not want anybody to talk to me about that live right now.
"You okay?" Jihyo turned back to me, about to ask another question but was quickly re-directed at the fact that I had this look of fear on me.
"Yeah... just some stalker." I shook my head and she sighed.
"Y/N, everybody keeps telling you to never answer calls from people you don't know." Jihyo started scolding me as I put my phone on airplane mode in order to avoid any more calls.
"I know, I know. I'm sorry. I'll get Yongjin to change my number." I leaned back in my seat and looked out of the window.
——
The live show wasn't that bad actually. Of course it was work so it was kind of boring but I do work in the entertainment industry so it wasn't soul sucking, I'll give it that. Anyways, onto the funner or even more soul sucking part of my day- depending on my mood, the fansigns. Now, when I was 15-16, did I enjoy having a few grown ass men sit down in front of me and ask me to act like a two year old for them? Absolutely not. But as the years went by, I fortunately started to interact with less creepy people coming to the fansigns. Now the whole aegyo thing, that's a whole self-debate that could go on for an entire hour without stopping.
At the event I was put last in the line and there I sat beside Tzuyu. As the line of fans started to get distributed among the chairs in front of the girls, I tapped my sharpie on the table when I leaned back on my chair. I hummed along with the music as I continued to wait. But when I heard some footsteps behind me, I naturally turned my head around to see two of our managers standing behind me.
"You're not really helping with the laying low thing." I looked up at them, a chuckle escaping my lips.
"Just in case someone tries anything." Yongjin explained and I nodded in response. Moments later, the man who had sat in front of Tzuyu previously now sat in front of me and I smiled softly, looking at him.
"Hello." I bowed as I greeted him and he bowed back.
As they handed me their album, I placed it in front of me before I opened it. I turned the pages to the one where they put a sticky note on it.
"Oh! By the way, in my fanclub, we figured out what restaurant you went to!" He said and I stopped moving for a split second. Now why did they find it in the first place?
"You did?" I asked, calmly grabbing the sharpie before pulling the cap off and they nodded.
"Yep, some of us went there and tried to get the same order as you but the waiters told us they couldn't remember unfortunately." He frowned and I nodded slowly.
"What about some other restaurants you went to?" I asked in attempts to change the topic.
"We went to another one that you went to years back but it wasn't as good as before." He answered. Of course. Still, I had to find a way out of this topic so I just persisted.
"Ah, I see. Um, what did you like about the comeback?" I asked and finally, he stepped away from the topic. I felt a smile curve up my lips as he started talking about his favourite songs on the album and I actually felt like talking to him. He also praised my work in helping produce and write the album which I was always grateful for. Sure he was a bit much at the start but he was a fan just like the rest of the people in the crowd. Fortunately, he actually respected the fact that I wanted to push away from the topic and he wasn't as persistent on bringing it back up after. When they had left, the next person had come and nothing from the last conversation changed.
Unfortunately, there was another nosy fan but I understood their curiosity, what annoyed me more than the last guy was that they actually persisted on knowing what happened after the vlive. It seemed that the managers too were annoyed by it so Yongjin quickly made the excuse that his time was already up just seconds before it actually would end and that he should move on. Once they left, Yongjin had placed his hand on my shoulder to comfort me and I mouthed a thank you when I turned my head. He nodded at me, pulling his hand away and I sighed after, turning my head back to the front.
I was lucky enough to have a small break away from those type of fans but like always, the wave returned and there were two more others that kept on asking questions about either the vlive or dating. I grabbed the mic after I waved a goodbye to a fan who just finished their meet even though the entire time, they've been trying to see whether or not I liked women because apparently, I didn't show enough interest in men during awards shows.
"Once." I spoke into a mic and heard the crowd respond to me. "When it's your turn with me, I'm requesting that you could at least try to avoid talking about some certain topics that I won't be interested in. It should be easy enough to know which topics are appropriate to discuss about and which are not. Thank you." I said and placed the mic back down gently.
"We paid for this! We can talk about whatever we want!" A fan yelled and I looked up at him.
"It is true that you paid a certain amount of money to see us but I'd be thankful if people didn't use the little amount of time to ask me unnecessary questions about my private life. Sir, just because someone spent how much money for this, it does not give them a free pass to know about our private lives. All I'm gonna say is, there's millions out there who would love to be here and I know that asking about my private life would be the last thing on their mind." I explained.
"Why did they delete your vlive?! We all know it was because of something else because most of your guys' vlives, even the unexpected ones don't get deleted! Is it because of what you said about not dating anyone from SM?!" He said, ignoring what I had just said a second ago and Yongjin quickly took the mic from me.
"If anyone asks anymore unnecessary questions again, we will immediately stop the fansign." He said and a commotion broke out. Some fans started to speak up about how unfair it was if it stopped just because of one person and I quickly stood up from the chair and pulled the mic away from him.
"There's no need to stop the entire fansign just because I'm getting a bit annoyed from the fans." I told him after I covered the mic with my hand.
"Four people have already used this fansign as a way to find out what happened after the live and we're only fifteen minutes in." He said and I sighed.
"If it gets that bad, just kick out the people who yell and all that. The girls are having fun along with the larger majority of the fans that aren't annoying me and I don't wanna ruin that." I told him and I looked at him for a few seconds as he gave deep thought into it.
"Fine." He nodded and I sighed in relief, taking my seat again. "If any one asks any more unnecessary questions to any of the members, they will be kicked out of the building." He said and soon the commotion fortunately died down.
"Hello." I looked up to see the woman, waiting so patiently during the entire situation and I rushed to open the book flipping it to my page in the album.
"Hi," I grinned at her. "I am so sorry that you had to wait through that, I did not think that was gonna happen today- actually I should've expected it but, I still didn't think it actually would." I nervously chuckled.
"Um, if you're uncomfortable, you can leave quickly if you'd like." I told them and )34 eyes widened, shaking her head.
"No! No!" She argued and a small smile curved up my lips at her suddenness. "You're my bias and I'm really excited to be here."
"Oh." I looked at her with raised brows.
"Yeah," She smiled at me. "I wanna ask you if you're preparing any new music." She started and I smiled in awe at her.
"Um, sadly no. I'm too caught up with some things right now- as you can see." I shrugged, signing my signature into the page and she giggled.
"I wanna suggest something," She commented and I hummed in response. "I think it's be really sweet if you like made a song for the fourth anniversary." She suggested and my smile grew from her sentence.
"That's a great idea, I'll see what I can do." I smiled, looking back up at her and then I realized I didn't even ask for her name yet.
"Uh, what's your name again?" I furrowed my brows.
"Soo-Jin." She smiled, tucking her hair behind her ear.
"Well, Soojin, you are like a needle in a haystack." I told her and then wrote a small note down for her as she held in her laugh. Then I finished writing and I closed the album, handing it back to her.
She thanked me before she had to leave and as I watched her leave, I suddenly felt a wave of relief wash over me.
——
Finally, after a long schedule, we were on our flight to Japan and inside the plane, I had sat with Jihyo. Everybody else was asleep and I couldn't really blame them. From what happening in the morning 'till now, everyone deserved a good night's rest. Though, when we left the venue, I started to see clips of my whole conversation with that specific 'fan' go viral. It's like the gift that is my controversy never stopped giving. Which probably won't stop for a while unfortunately.
"Tired?" Jihyo asked, turning her head to me after she noticed at how zoned out I look, just staring at the world map where the image of a plane and the line from where we took off to where we'd land was plastered on it.
"Very." I lazily turned my head to her and closed my eyes. "I shouldn't have said those things to that fan."
"Hey, don't say that." Jihyo looked at me with furrowed brows. "You stood up for yourself. You should be proud." She told me. I opened my eyes again and I watched Jihyo lay her head on mine.
"You know how much I love you right?" I muttered, staring back at the small tv.
"You know I'll always take your side Y/N..." She said in a quieter voice than before as she took my hand in hers.
"Thanks." I whispered before I closed my eyes once again, hoping to catch some sleep before we landed.