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“This is nothing,” she scoffed. “I would bury bodies for you. I still might. It’s not off the table, if I ever get my hands on Hana.”
“Becka, I don’t know how I–”
“Babes. Stop. You don’t have to. You never have to. Plus,” she carried on, switching from serious into something suspiciously amused, “You’ve been excellent for my image. I’ve had actual enquiries. People have seen my name on your email auto-replies, and your social media. Your scandal has come in clutch, for me.”
I barked out a sharp laugh. “I’m happy for you, Becka. I’m glad one of us is gonna have a job out of all this.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I sobered and told Becka about the email, and how I’d had to fly back to Seoul.
“Fuuuck,” Becka intoned.
“Yeah,” I sighed in agreement.
“Do you think they’re gonna fire you?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I really think they will,” I said, dragging a hand down my face and falling back on the bed.
“For what? Having a love life?” Becka sounded scandalised.
“It’s not quite as simple as that, but… yeah. Kinda.”
“Well, fuck them, too!” Becka said loudly, making me laugh, despite it all.
“It’s not really ENT I’m worried about,” I confessed. “It’s everyone else.”
“Who’s everyone else?”
“Literally, everyone. It’s not just that I’m seeing a famous celebrity. It’s that I was a staff member when I did so. It’ll be seen as professional misconduct at best.”
“First of all, Ky, you’re an independent contractor on a temporary work assignment. There is a difference. Secondly, you’ve known him for years. You didn’t just meet him on this tour and decide to pursue him.”
“Becka, you’ve been handling my social media. In the past couple of days, have you seen anything to suggest that’s how people will see it?”
I wasn’t looking for reassurance, I wasn’t looking to victimise myself. If anything, I was tired, because I’d seen this narrative so many times, in so many variations. It wasn’t just that I was a tour attaché, it wasn’t just that I was a journalist. I was a woman. And however you wanted to sugarcoat it, or deny it, women were somehow always the ones to blame. It didn’t matter what context. Political. The movie industry. Music studios. Somehow, whenever there was a scandal involving two people crossing professional boundaries, there was always a woman to blame first.
I’d already seen several posts flat-out saying I’d got the tour gig by sleeping with Jihoon. How long would it take people to write off my entire career as some kind of romantic nepotism?
Becka didn’t answer, which was answer enough. I blew out a breath.
“The thing that pisses me off is that I acknowledge that there will be legitimate criticisms about my conduct, but they’re going to be tossed into the same bucket as the bullshit and misogyny, and few people bother separating them.”
“Ky, you didn’t–”
“No,” I interrupted. “No, Becka. I did. I fucked up. Professionally, I fucked up. We should have been adults and waited until the tour was over. Whatever professional fallout occurs will be because I’ve brought it down on myself. I can deal with that. I can stomach being painted as a love-sick idiot. It’s the other ways people will find to vilify me that’s gonna hurt. I wouldn’t even necessarily lose sleep if people just thought I was the whore they’re painting me out to be,” I scoffed. “But it’s gonna hurt if my professionalism takes the brunt of it.”
I’d worked so hard. Torn myself down just to build myself up, brick by brick. I’d finally made a career I loved, and the thought that it might just disappear… I rolled onto my side, squeezing my eyes shut and tried to push down the panic.
“We won’t let that happen,” Becka swore. “Ky, I swear to you. We won’t let that happen. You’re not going down for this. But if you do, you have so many of us that’ll pick you back up. You don’t even realise it, but there’s so many of us, babes.”
I smiled a little. “You and your street team?”
“No, babes. Your street team.”
Chapter 50
October 7th
