Veautiful Days

Blue: For Us 3 (AU)

Happy Birthday Tae! 

"This doesn't look good for our brand. Any idea who leaked the video?"

Jennie thinks back to the question Bang PD asked her and Tae at the company office a few days ago. Who could it be? she thinks to herself. Someone in the dressing room. Someone on the staff? And how did they follow me to Tae's apartment? How did they know?

Jennie's roommate, Lisa, enters their kitchen and goes to check the rice cooker. Upon opening it, she lets out a contended, "Wua!" She scoops out some rice into a bowl. Then she serves herself some galbitang soup and sits down next to Jennie at the table. "Good morning, roomie. How are you?"

"Mmm...not bad..." Jennie frowns. "But not good."

Lisa squeezes the hand of her good friend. "The video? I wouldn't worry too much about it. Scandals happen all the time in K-pop. They go away eventually." She watches Jennie silently pick up some rice with her chopsticks. "Hey, have you read the comments online?"

"Yeah, good stuff," Jennie says sarcastically.

"Well, I read some netizens posts saying, 'If you're mad Tae has a girlfriend, then you can't call yourself ARMY.' See, you have their support!"

"I guess," Jennie manages finally. "I saw one that said, 'I love Taehyung. I would be happy for him if he had a girlfriend.'"

"And if fans are mad, they should be mature and leave him alone!"

"I'm more worried about the company. And Tae's reputation there."

Lisa holds the bowl up to her mouth and asks before slurping, "What did BigHit decide to do?"

"They're going to post a fake video admitting that it was photoshopped." Jennie chews her food thoughtfully. "They couldn't trace the account of the original post so they hope this will work. The OP can't deny it without revealing themselves."

Lisa's doe eyes get bigger. "The company should be happy the comments are mostly favorable. Anyway, there's no such thing as bad publicity."

"Says the girl who's studying to be a journalist." Jennie narrows her eyes at Lisa. "Ya! It's not you is it?" She fake punches her roommate in the arm playfully.

"I would never do that. You know I love you," Lisa professes, turning in her chair to give Jennie a big hug.

The two share a smile before Jennie's phone pings! an alert. She receives a text from Tae letting her know he's on his way. Lisa taps her on the shoulder with an "Uh-oh!" and shoves her own phone in her face. Jennie pulls back to focus on the screen open to the Twitter app with various tweets of 🤮 emojis and "#StylistSucks."

Jennie's face falls so fast it makes a whoosh! sound. She is justifiably angry and the need to seek revenge clouds her mind. Suddenly her chest muscles tighten and her heart races, signaling a panic attack. It isn't new to Jennie, having had these when her parents divorced years ago. So she excuses herself from the kitchen and holes up in her bedroom for a few minutes doing her breathing exercise of counting backwards from 5...4...3...2...1...

~~~~~~~

Later that day, she shows the tweets to Tae when he visits. "Aish. I didn't see those," he says, as he sits next to her on the living room couch.

"What do you mean those? There's more?" Jennie asks, furrowing a brow.

"Oh...did you see the posts on Weverse?"

Tae pulls out his phone and the screen shows a picture of Tae and Jennie in the dressing room and another picture of a gun with the caption "Good night stylist." She gasps. Her head falls back slowly as she looks up at the ceiling, tears welling up in her eyes, feeling a headache coming on.