There's a new scandal for Seulki to deal with
A/N: there's some swearing, descriptions of anxiety and slight panic, read at your discretion
Seulki woke up to her shrill ringtone and groaned. She knew she had at least another hour left to sleep and the boys knew not to wake her up even a minute beforehand. She had been spending late nights at the company helping Yoongi and Namjoon with lyrics and learning more of the producing side for their album. Going in on off days to work with the stylists in picking out concepts and outfits and decorations. She even was able to play a small role in a rough draft of the album art.
She hadn't gotten home last night until almost three in the morning and all she wanted to do was sleep. She sighed in relief when it stopped ringing, only to sit up and let out a harsh groan when it started ringing again. With her eyes still blurry from sleep, she picked it up without looking at who was calling. "Hello?" She winced at how groggy her voice sounded.
"You're supposed to pick up when I call the first time, bitch." Seulki chuckled at her best friends teasing voice. "Good morning to you too, Jane. Why are you calling me so early?"
"It's like noon, S." Seulki could practically see her rolling her eyes on the other side of the phone. "Semantics," she teased, "What's up?"
"You haven't been online at all?" Seulki hummed in response, flipping her legs off the side of her bed and slipping into her fuzzy slippers. "Nope. I didn't get back to the dorms until late last night. I literally woke up when you called me the second time. Why? Is something wrong?" Jane sighed on the other end in annoyance and Seulki suddenly had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"YunJae-ah," she murmured, "What's going on?" Jane was silent for a moment before she spoke. "There's some articles going around. Someone made a post anonymously on a forum saying that you used to bully kids back in middle school." Seulki let out a nervous chuckled. "It's not true, Jane. Just some kids being jealous or whatever."
"Choi Seulki!" Jane hissed, "Of course, I know that's not true! You told me about it. But they have pictures up there, S. Conversations. Obviously fabricated, but it's blowing up." Seulki felt her hands start shaking slightly and she gulped. "L-let me call you back." She hung up and quickly went online, seeing that she was top trending at the moment. She found the original post and scrolled through, feeling her eyes well up with tears.
She gasped and dropped her phone when she saw the picture they had put up. It was from when she was in middle school. But it was edited. Expertly edited as well. She only knew it was edited because she had the same picture but instead of the brown-haired girl in this picture with the writing all over her, the original photo was Seulki's small stature and hazel eyes staring back with writing all over her.
Jane had been right; it was blowing up everywhere. It seemed that everyone believed it. Believed the photo, believed what was being said, the altered conversations. Seulki's mind went blank, went back to that time when she stared at the mirror in the girls bathroom, the black words written all over her skin, her clothes, her backpack. Something she had pushed to the back of her mind to never think about again was rearing its ugly head.
She fell to her knees, the tears steadily flowing from her hazel eyes. She really never thought that this would ever be brought up. That no one would ever know about it. Just a dark time in her life that she thought would never see the light of day again. At least not twisted and fabricated like this.
"Seulki!" She barely heard the panicked voice running through the dorm. It didn't even register in her head that one of the boys was there now. "There you are! Seulki!" She looked up to see a very worried Namjoon kneeling next to her, arms around her back. "It's okay. I'm here now."
"O-oppa," she breathed out shakily, falling into his chest and burying her face into his shirt. "I-it's not true, Joon. I-It's not t-true." Namjoon quietly shushed her, rubbing her back. "I know, baby. I know. We'll figure this out. We have your back. We've got you."
The two sat on the ground for an hour, not saying anything. Just Namjoon quietly calming her down and Seulki worrying about what this was all about to bring down on her.
