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"I don't know why I agree to this." She told herself as a feeling of fear crept up her spine as she was sneaking in the middle of the night to her destination.
The SM Town building was in the middle of town--along with several other skyscrapers belonging to important businesses, the Pledis Entertainment building wasn't too far off from there. But their meeting needed to be on neutral ground for the two of them. Somewhere no one would see them--or recognize them. It was the reason she always found herself in an abandoned parking lot at the edge of town, the secret twists and turns of a park's hiking trail, or a cheap motel whenever she wanted to see him. It was the only way they could be together.
Both of them were bound by their careers, bound by their contracts. They had to remain loyal to the agencies that had given them everything--fame and a career they could be proud of, but it was hard.
Oh, it was hard.
Never associate yourself with them, they were told from the first moment that they became trainees in their respective agencies. They are the enemy. The same words told to them through different people, but it was all the same.
SM Entertainment and Pledis absolutely hated each other. That was a fact.
SM had been around longer than Pledis, but when Pledis started out, it was clear that the rivalry between the two agencies would be ruthless. And it was. But the rivalry was most famously reflected in the two agencies' most popular groups of the moment. Where it had once been a rivalry between Super Junior of SM Entertainment and Roser-Lo of Pledis, it was now a deep hatred between SM Entertainment's EXO and Pledis Entertainment's Baby Lips. Both groups with twelve members, one made up of all-boys, and one made up of all-girls. Both debuted within the same year. Both with members within the same age group. Both pushed by their managers to be the best in Korea.
It was one interview that had started it all--the new wave of fierce rivalry between the two agencies, a fresh set of hatred for the media to cover. There hadn't even been a year of peace when the competition began with the new generation of idols. One sentence that pitted both groups against each other and launched a years long war in the kpop industry--permanently. One sentence confidently pronounced by the maknae of the group who had been encouraged to throw some banter--or shade--at the male group to catch them some media attention to launch their career a step quicker than it was already going. In reality, it had been the group's leader--Park Sarang, otherwise known as Saris--who had been encouraged to speak about the boy group. But the youngest of them had been the one to express her opinion instead.
"So, what do you girls think about SM Entertainment's EXO?" The MC asked the twelve girls seated around him. It had been just a few months after their debut that they had been invited to be on a television program after giving their first introduction concert, and it was the perfect way to get themselves noticed by the general public. The MC added with a grin, finding the situation of the two bands to be entertaining. "Everyone has mentioned how both your group and theirs are the opposite gender versions of each other." The two groups were so similar in their upbringing as trainees, and so many other aspects that it was common for people to compare them to each other, just like they had done with Super Junior and Roser-Lo, driving them into a rivalry that seemed to have no end. The girls of Baby Lips were done with all the comparisons.
