Chapter 6!

“Unnie, wake up!”

An Yujin woke up to someone pushing and holding onto her shoulder lightly. Her eyes slowly lifted themselves open yet her mind was still absent from the present.

She blinked once and then twice before her vision steadied onto a girl that stood by the side of her bed. She felt her touch and shake her shoulder before deciding to push herself up from her bed.

“Liz..? What’s going on?” She asked out with a dry tone of her voice.

“Unnie…I don’t know how to explain it, I think it’s better to see for yourself.” Liz replied at the older girl, pulling on her arm and urging her to get out of bed.

“What are you…talking about?” Yujin asked as she pulled her blanket off of her. She slowly stood up from the bed before the younger girl started pulling on her arm, headed towards the door of her room.

“The thing is unnie…they found us!” Liz shouted back as they headed out into the hallway.

Their leader contorted her expression into a confused one when she heard her and got even more confused when she saw her members once again gathered in the living room.

Gaeul and Leeseo stood around the kitchen, pacing back and forth. Wonyoung stood by their door, peering onto the camera that showed the front of their dorm. The situation left her to wonder where their foreign member was.

“Who did? What even is happening right now?” Yujin continued to ask.

Liz pulled her leader through the living room towards their door. She got even more worried when none of her answered and explained what made their morning a bit gloomy.

“Yah, look at this.” Wonyoung raised a hand and slowly flicked it towards her.

Yujin didn’t take any notice at her informality but what she did notice was the confused and fearful look on her face. Whatever was going outside their dorm, she was starting to be wary of it.

Liz went off to the other side after she placed her leader in the middle between her and Wonyoung. Yujin stood beside the tall girl before she glanced down at the camera feed.

She saw nothing which questioned their situation even more. Maybe some person was trying to come inside earlier or maybe it was crazed fan trying to get their attention, she didn’t know which was worse.

“What’s…happening?” Yujin whispered at the two.

“I saw a group of people in front of the door earlier, they were looking for you, Unnie.” Liz explained, her arm wrapping back around her leader’s in fright.

“People looking for me..? I wonder who could they b-” Yujin and the two girls beside her suddenly turned their attention to the kitchen behind them.

“How dare they say that about us?!” They heard their eldest member shout out in anger.

“What’s going on, unnie?” Yujin asked as she walked back to the kitchen. She had never heard Gaeul mad so she had one of the biggest frights of her life when she heard her just flat out shout in anger.

“Everyone is making things about us now!” Gaeul showed her the open phone in her hands. The screen displayed the brightness coming from a news article that concerned the situation their leader found her in.

Now holding the phone in her hands, she looked upon the text displayed. Her eyes dash between each line of text there was, one after the other seemed to continue the blatant lie that has been spread through the now reports about their group.

“… It is said that her nasty attitude towards staff has rubbed off to her groupmates and the public has changed their opinions on IVE overnight, from the nation’s rising stars to the prime example of how fame can change people for the worse…”

Yujin scoffed under her breath before her eyes latched onto the comments of the article.

’ [+1249, -450] I always knew something was off with that group, thankfully they’re now showing they’re true colors ㅋㅋㅋ ’

’ [+987, -127] Yujin-ah, you’ve simply let the money get to your head, how could you do that to a member of a hardworking staff?? An Yujin please remove yourself from the group immediately! ’

’ [+383, -122] These brats are surely out of the industry now, right??? I’ve always hated their music in the first place! ’

She knew these were just people’s comments and it was best to just ignore them but knowing they would just believe the words of other’s instead of her own, it hurt.

Gulping down a painful breath of air, she turned the phone off. She sighed, putting it over to the counter.

“Yujin-ah, are we really going to allow them write anything about us?” Gaeul sternly asked the girl. She looked down, unsure what to answer the girl in front of her.

“We can try but I don’t think anybody would like to take our side right now, unnie.” Yujin replied, a sorrowful look on her face.

*THUD!*

All of the girls in the room turned their head towards the door where their Japanese member loudly closed the door behind her. She leaned back as she breathed and exhaled heavily as if she just ran a marathon.

“There’s…a lot…of reporters…” She mumbled out softly in between her breaths.

“W-where did Rei come from?” Yujin asked, approaching the girl at the door.

“I ordered…breakfast.” Rei gave an exhausted smile as she raised her hand that held a white plastic bag with styrofoam boxes inside.

“Did you run all the way back up?” Yujin reached her hand out, before swiping some strand’s of the girl’s hair out of her eyes.

“Maybe…maybe not…I had it delivered at the bottom floor, didn’t realize there were loads of people looking for you, Unnie.” The foreign girl handed over the food to her leader that now held it in her hands.

“That’s fine. Sit down for a second, rest up while we get these ready.” Yujin gave her shoulder a soft pat.

“I told you to get them to deliver up here or at least let hotel service do it.” Liz appeared at the other’s girls side with a pout on her lips.

“I did but they said the elevators were crowded and I told them that I would just head there myself. Little did I know that it was filled with reporters looking for our door.” Rei explained, pulling her hair back to cool herself.

Yujin took in another long and contemplating breath. Her situation had gotten worse overnight and it had started affecting them in ways she would have never thought of like what kind of reporters would try to barge in their door?

With her members now affected by the actions of others, she had to do something and it had to be quick.

But what could she do? Perhaps, she’ll cross that bridge when she gets there as all of them were having quite the morning and they could use a hot meal.

Lim (YN) carefully treaded through the halls of a small office. He had his hands inside his pockets as the ID swayed along his movements.

The sounds of office chitter chatter echoed through the air, mixing in the with the typing of keys and soft humming from the printers in the office.

(YN) greeted some of the people along the way until he reached a smaller room past the cubicles. He breathed in the cold air as he placed a hand over the doorknob.

With an exhale, he knocked on it lightly before he slowly opened the door and entered the dim office. The man saw the chief of the news building sitting behind their table, reading pages of paper as he walked in.

“Good morning, Chief Hong. I heard you were calling for me?”

“Ah Lim (YN), just the man I was looking for. Please, take a seat.” The man glanced up from the papers in his hands and gestured him towards the chairs in front of his desk.