Previously:
Chapter 1: Here's to the Night Chapter 2: Maneater Chapter 3: Know Your Enemy Chapter 4: I Just Wanna Live Chapter 5: Shark in the Water Chapter 6: Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk Chapter 7: Smooth Operator Chapter 8: Gives You Hell Chapter 9: Won't Get Fooled Again Chapter 10: Science Fiction Double Feature Chapter 11: Meeting Chapter 12: Dizzy Boy Chapter 13: Someone to Watch Over Me Chapter 14: Can't Take My Eyes Off You Chapter 15: Buses and Trains Chapter 16: If That's What It Takes Disclaimer: The A.N.JELL-verse belongs to the Hong sisters, creators of You're Beautiful. The "cat food" part was inspired by a scene in Ain't She Sweet? by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Her romantic comedy novels are delightful.
Author's Notes: My apologies, but we have a rewrite instead of a proper update this week. I appreciate that everyone liked the final scene in the original (which has not been deleted from this journal), but I thought I'd kick it up a notch and this was the result. Thank you, as always, to
min7girl,
akaironoyoru and
lilivanilla1 for the feedback!
Chapter Seventeen - I'll Be Good For You (*NSYNC)
"And what is it, exactly, that she didn't do?" Tae-kyung asked, raising his voice slightly to make himself heard over the commotion in the production booth outside, where the security guards were clamoring to be let in.
"We all know what it is," In-jung told him flatly. "You think she was the one who leaked the story about Jeremy and his girlfriend to the magazine. She told me you accused her of doing that. Well, it wasn't her."
Mi-nam's heart gave a funny jolt at this piece of information, but he kept the scowl on his face. "Really?" he scoffed. "Do you have any proof?"
"Of course I do!" the photographer retorted. "For your information, Oh-lan noona hasn't had anything to do with the content of the magazine for the past few months because she was busy with your book project. And when she was finished writing the book, she quit Inside Showbiz. She's been on terminal leave ever since!"
The conviction in the young man's voice sounded very promising, but Mi-nam still suppressed the hope that had begun to well up inside him. Life at the orphanage, and then later as an idol trainee, had taught him not to get your hopes up, because there was always the chance that they could get dashed to bits. "That's a nice story, but then you media types are really good at that, aren't you? How do you know that she didn't tip off someone in your staff to write the story anyway?"
"She would never do that - especially since she's leaving the magazine to come and work here, at AN Entertainment."
At that point, the guards saw that nothing violent was going on and stopped banging on the door, so In-jung's last words rang clearly throughout the room.
After a moment of stunned silence to digest the revelation, Shin-woo broke into a small smile. "Well, if that's true, then Reporter Park couldn't have done it. Only a fool would do something that would get you in trouble with your future boss, and we all know Reporter Park is a pretty smart person."
Yeah, Mi-nam thought, relief washing over him despite his best efforts to remain cynical. She's pretty, and smart, and she'll never forgive me for this.
"You believe me?" In-jung sighed heavily and sagged against the studio door. "Oh, thank goodness. That was the only proof I had - I mean, if I had just said that another person was responsible, you might not have believed me, right?"
"Who's the one responsible?" Jeremy asked.
"It's one of our senior reporters, Kim Soon-ok, who was behind it." A look of distaste crossed the photographer's face. "He's been insufferable ever since the scandal broke."
Mi-nam had a sudden flash of insight. "The jerk at the bar!" he exclaimed.
"What?" his bandmates chorused, looking confused.
"He was at the restaurant where we went out to dinner after the sports campaign thing for the foundation. Oh-Reporter Park covered up for us then, pretending that, uh, Cookie Monster was her friend; remember, Jeremy?"
"Yeah, I remember that," the drummer confirmed.
"I guess Reporter Kim didn't believe noona when she said that," In-jung said as he took up the thread of the tale. "No wonder he suddenly became very interested in A.N.JELL."
"He probably noticed Cookie Monster appearing in quite a few pictures and put two and two together," Tae-kyung concluded.
The photographer nodded. "She's cute," he remarked.
"And she's mine," Jeremy snarled.
"Maybe not for long, once she finds out that you're calling her 'Cookie Monster' to other people," Tae-kyung told him.
"Hyuuuung!" the drummer whined, pouting.
"But what about that picture of her and Jeremy walking and holding hands?" Shin-woo asked. "That wasn't at a public function."
"Reporter Kim has contacts everywhere," In-jung explained. "Cleaning ladies, hotel waiters, even cops. People that would probably escape notice. I guess one of them really came through for him with that picture."
"That sounds sleazy," Jeremy said with a grimace.
"Sleazy is Reporter Kim's style."
"Well, now that we all know the truth," Shin-woo said then, "maybe we should start thinking of ways to make it up to Reporter Park. I mean, we didn't sue her or anything like that, but we were wrong even to just think that she had anything to do with the scandal when she has always watched out for us."
Mi-nam blushed guiltily. Maybe the others hadn't done anything mean to Oh-lan, but he sure had. "Where is she now?" he asked In-jung.
"She's at the Inside Showbiz offices," the other young man replied. "It's her last day of terminal leave, so we're throwing her a farewell party. I'm supposed to be buying cake and drinks, but I came here instead," he admitted.
"Bring me there," he blurted out impulsively. "We'll pick up the stuff on the way. My treat."
In-jung looked startled at that, but eventually shrugged and agreed. The security guards in the production booth tensed when the lock in the door clicked open, then stared, flabbergasted, as Mi-nam escorted the intruder outside. "He came by to pick me up," the keyboardist explained blithely. "Sorry I forgot to alert you guys earlier."
Tae-kyung smiled crookedly when the pair had gone. "When I said once upon a time that a little distraction was in order," he told his other bandmates, "I had no idea that it would be Mi-nam who would wind up getting permanently distracted."
While In-jung was at AN Entertainment, reading the riot act to A.N.JELL, Oh-lan was indeed at the Inside Showbiz offices. Even though she was technically on leave, she didn't mind coming in because it wasn't as though she was expected to put in a day's work. Besides, her co-workers were kind enough to put together a farewell party for her, and she didn't want to snub their efforts.
"We're going to miss you a lot, Oh-lan," said one of the receptionists. "You'll come and visit us sometimes, won't you?"
"Definitely," she promised, smiling. She was fairly sure that her new job would have her visiting or at least coordinating with all sorts of media outlets, including Inside Showbiz, so she wasn't going to completely lose touch with her friends at the magazine. "I'm sure you'll still see me around quite a bit, Ah-reum."
"And you have to treat us when you get your first salary from your new job," Jung-ah added. "We're sure you're going to do very well, so you have to share the bounty!"
"Yes, ma'am," Oh-lan laughed.
"At this point, we're supposed to drink a toast to your success," her uncle noted, "but In-jung isn't back yet with the drinks. What's keeping that kid?"
As if on cue, In-jung made his entrance, and he wasn't alone. Go Mi-nam strode beside him, his face like a thundercloud.
Oh-lan frowned at the A.N.JELL keyboardist even as the others started exclaiming over the surprise guest. What was he doing here? If he was going to ruin the occasion for her and her co-workers, she was going to kill him, even if it meant losing her new job! Just because he was a celebrity didn't mean that he was always right!
To her surprise, Mi-nam stormed past her and up to Soon-ok, who was standing on the fringes of the group. Then he drew back his fist and buried it in the senior reporter's stomach. "That one's for ratting out Jeremy," he growled, then went on to punch Soon-ok in the nose. "And that one's for being an asshole to Oh-lan!"
"Go Mi-nam!" Oh-lan screeched, jumping to her feet as his victim crumpled to the ground. "Do you know what you just did? Does you know where you are?" She looked around wildly, at the desks with the all-too-convenient computers on them. "This could be all over the Internet in minutes!"
The others were shocked, but Jung-ah was quick to recover. "What could be all over the Internet in minutes?" she asked innocently. "I didn't see anything."
Catching on, Ah-reum the receptionist nodded and chimed in, "I think it's right that you're resigning, Oh-lan. The stress of this job is making you see things."
In-jung placed the cake box and plastic bag of drinks on their makeshift buffet table, then looked down with surprise at Soon-ok, who was struggling to stand. Blood trickled from his nose. "Oh, Reporter Kim! Are you all right? That was a nasty fall you took down the stairs."
Spitting out a curse in reply, the injured man finally got to his feet and turned to Oh-lan's uncle. "Editor Park, are you going to let them do this to me?" he demanded of his boss.
Getting over his own surprise, the older man scowled. "I'm not surprised that you got punched for being an asshole, Soon-ok," he said, "but what's this about ratting out Jeremy? Do you mean to say that you were responsible for going behind my back with that article?"
"What do you mean, he went behind your back?" the news and features editor asked blankly. "Reporter Kim told me that he had already cleared it with you when he submitted it to me!"
Unfortunately for Oh-lan, she was going to miss out on the drama just as things were getting good because at that point, Mi-nam grabbed her arm and towed her away.
He hustled her into the stock room, situated in the back of the office and away from where everyone was gathered. To keep her from getting away, he kept himself between her and the locked door, just as In-jung had done in the studio earlier.
Remembering all too well what had happened the last time he took her away from her co-workers, Oh-lan wrested her arm from his grip and rounded on him. "Take me back there right now," she ordered. "Do you want the others to get ideas?"
"Practically everyone out there is on your side," Mi-nam pointed out calmly. "They won't say anything if you ask them to keep quiet, and I doubt if anyone's going to believe Reporter Kim now if he tries to blab."
"But you might still get me in trouble," she fretted, "and I haven't even started my new job yet!"
"Speaking of that new job, why didn't you tell me?"
"I started to!" Oh-lan snapped, and then subsided, her cheeks turning pink. "But then you kissed me and I forgot to finish."
"Oh." Grinning, he pushed off the door and moved towards her.
She squeaked as she backed into boxes of copy paper, and but recovered quickly and warded off his advance with a shove and a forbidding scowl. "I tried to tell you again, that day after the story came out," she added, "but you were too busy screaming at me to listen."
That brought him up short. "Oh," he said again, looking abashed. "Yeah, I... In-jung just told us that you weren't writing for the magazine anymore.
"I'm really sorry about, you know, not believing you when you said you weren't responsible for that story coming out," Mi-nam went on. "I should have known right away that you would never do that to Jeremy, even if you were still working for Inside Showbiz, but we were all caught up in wanting to protect him and Su-jin that I wasn't thinking straight."
"You know how to think straight?" she asked, arching a skeptical eyebrow, then smiled thinly. "Well, the things you accused me of were very hurtful, but I guess it's good to know that all of you were rallying around Jeremy. That's what a real team should always do."
"I'm still not proud of what I did to you," he said quietly. "Do you think... you can give me another chance?"
Oh-lan stared at him thoughtfully for several moments, making him squirm. "I suppose that we should put all of that behind us," she said finally. "After all, it will be important for us to have a good working relationship in the future." She frowned when he frowned. "What's wrong?"
"That's not what I meant at all. I didn't come here because I wanted us to have 'a good working relationship,'" Mi-nam scoffed. His face grew hot when he realized what he had just blurted out, but there was no taking it back now. "I came here because...." He coughed, cleared his throat and drew himself up. "I came here because I like you," he told her matter-of-factly. "You know, for real."
Her jaw dropped. "I-we-" she sputtered, blushing as well. "You do know that I'm leaving here to work for AN Entertainment, don't you?"
"Yeah, that's what In-jung said. So?"
"So, we can't, you know... date or whatever," she mumbled, pretending to be busy straightening the boxes she had disturbed earlier. "It wouldn't look good, especially to President Ahn."
"What President Ahn doesn't know won't hurt him," he pointed out. He had to admit that she had a point, but there had to be some way that they could balance a relationship with both their careers. "And you're good at keeping secrets, aren't you?"
It became distressingly clear that he had just said the worst possible thing when she lifted her chin, skewering him with a narrow-eyed glare. "I thought that this whole mess with Jeremy and Su-jin has made it very clear that I'm much better at it than you think," she said coldly. "Don't worry, I won't breathe a word of this to anyone. In fact, we can both act as though this conversation never happened. Now, let me out of here."
Mi-nam wished he could have kept her in that closet until she relented, but he didn't want her accusing him of holding her hostage or something (especially in front of all those reporters who were so obviously her friends), so he had no choice but to let her leave. However, he wasn't going to just give her up without a fight, which was why he was spending the evening at the A.N.JELL mansion very deep in thought.
That totally wasn't like him, which was why Mi-nyeo was instantly concerned. "Is anything wrong, oppa?" she asked as she sidled up to her twin. Jeremy and Su-jin's first date as a reunited couple had taken them to the supermarket, where the redheaded boy (wearing a disguise, of course) had bought a load of goodies for a special celebratory dinner. The other A.N.JELL members and their girlfriends were pitching in to help prepare the meal.
"You've been moping around all evening," she went on, looking worried.
"And he's not helping with the cooking!" Tae-kyung added, glancing up from the carrot he was slicing.
"Are you feeling all right?" Mi-nyeo asked her brother.
"I'm fine," he replied with a small smile. "I'm just-"
"He's in love with Reporter Park!" Jeremy announced with a grin.
The girls gasped. Su-jin was the first to recover from her shock. "Omo, you two would be so cute together!" she squealed.
"And she's nice, too," Mi-nyeo added approvingly.
"Thanks," Mi-nam said with a dagger look at Jeremy, who grinned back unrepentantly.
"Does she like you back?"
"I think so, but-" Suddenly, he jumped to his feet. "That's it!"
"What's it?" His sister squeaked and looked at him, mystified, when he grabbed her in a hug. "Are you OK, oppa?"
"I'm great! Hang on, I have to make a call!"
Moments later, Oh-lan was startled by the ringing of her cell phone. She dropped her book and jumped, waking Genghis, who had been napping on her lap. She frowned when she saw the caller's name, irritated both at him and the giddy excitement she felt at the thought of speaking to him.
"Hey," Mi-nam greeted her, suave as ever, when she came on the line.
"Hello, Go Mi-nam," she replied in a coolly polite tone of voice. "How may I help you this evening?"
"You don't want to date me because you think it won't be professional."
"Well, congratulations for finally realizing that," she said, still sounding polite although the politeness was starting to smack more of sarcasm. "I must have spent ten minutes trying to explain that to you this afternoon."
"Yeah, you said it over and over," he agreed, and chuckled. The sound was as deep and dark as the chocolates she couldn't help indulging in occasionally, and it told her that she was in serious trouble. "But not once have you said that you won't date me because you don't like me."
Oh-lan swallowed. "OK," she managed to reply, managing to keep her voice steady even though her body had begun to feel hot and cold at the same time. "Another reason why I don't want to date you is because I don't like you."
"You don't really mean that."
"No, it's true," she assured him earnestly. "I just didn't say so right away because I didn't want to hurt your feelings. The truth is that you're incredibly infuriating." Especially now that you're winning.
The rat had the nerve to actually laugh at her. "No offense, Reporter Park, but you're not as good at lying as you are at keeping secrets."
She scowled, and was strongly tempted to snipe at him about who was the better liar between the two of them, but instead she said, "OK, if - purely for the sake of argument - I did care about you a little bit, that's all the more reason why we can't get together. If I did like you, then it would be selfish of me to put you in danger of ending up in the same situation as Jeremy and Su-jin. It wouldn't be fair to you, and it wouldn't be very smart considering that my career is now dependent on yours."
Mi-nam laughed at her again. "Sorry, but you're not getting rid of me that easily. First of all, I'm not worried about getting found out like Jeremy and Su-jin, because with you working at AN Entertainment we won't have to find ways to see each other outside the office. Second, if you did like me, then you'd want me to be happy, and the only way that will happen is if we're together."
Her heart gave a funny little lurch. "I... make you happy?"
He cleared his throat. "Yeah, you make me happy," he replied, sounding as uncertain as she felt. "You get me to read and think about things... and you keep my feet on the ground. I don't know what I'll do if you're not by my side," he concluded. "Probably do stupid things and get into all kinds of trouble - and that won't be good for my career or yours, so you had better stick around."
Oh-lan couldn't help but smile at that. As incredibly infuriating as Mi-nam was, she couldn't help being at least a little bit amused over how neatly he was turning her arguments against her. One thing was for sure, life would never be boring when they got together.
If they got together, she amended, blushing.
"So...." he said softly when she didn't say anything, "what do you think?"
"I think...." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I'll think about it, all right?"
Oh-lan thought about it, and thought about it. She was still thinking about it even after she started her new job at AN Entertainment.
It was obvious that Mi-nam didn't believe in giving her the space with which to make her decision. Besides calling whenever he got the chance, he also bombarded her with flowers and cake not just at home, but also at the office. In the beginning, it was easy enough to pass them off to her co-workers as good-luck tokens from family and friends, but not so much after a couple of weeks.
"Your family must really love you," remarked Yang Chun-hye, one of the other girls in the department, as a messenger brought up yet another cake from a fancy bakery.
"You have no idea," Oh-lan replied dryly.
"Well, we're really glad that they do," someone else joked. "Because of you, there's almost always something to eat around here!"
Just then, the door opened and Shin-woo came in. He exchanged polite greetings with the other PR people on his way to Oh-lan's desk. "Hi, Reporter-I mean, Publicist Park," he greeted her pleasantly. "How are you today?"
"I'm doing all right, thanks," she replied, smiling at him. Besides knowing him to be a nice person, Shin-woo was also a great favorite in the PR Department, mostly because he didn't give them problems by doing anything stupid. "How about you?"
"I'm all right, too, thank you." He held out a folded piece of paper. "I was asked to bring you this."
The thought of one of AN Entertainment's major talents acting as an office messenger was a bit puzzling, but Oh-lan supposed that Shin-woo was just being kind and doing someone a favor, so she took the note and opened it.
There were only two words written on the paper.
WILL YOU
She looked up blankly. "What in the world... ?"
His smile widened into a grin and he beat a hasty retreat. "Bye! Have a nice day!"
An hour later, Jeremy turned up with the second installment, which said:
GO OUT
Oh-lan quickly put two and two together and let out a little groan when she realized who was responsible for the cryptic messages.
"Yeah," the drummer snickered, speaking in a low voice so that no one else would overhear, "just between you and me, noona, I think it's really cheesy, too."
"It's not that," she answered, blushing. "I mean, you're right, it is cheesy, but now he has the rest of you involved as well. It's so embarrassing."
"Don't be embarrassed!" He waggled his eyebrows and gave her a mischievous grin. "We wouldn't help if we didn't think you'd be good for him."
"Are you working on something for A.N.JELL, Oh-lan?" Chun-hye asked after Jeremy had gone.
"Um, yes," she answered, stowing the note with the other one in her desk drawer. Fortunately, she wasn't lying. "President Ahn is asking me to organize some interviews for the band."
"I guess he thought of some more reporters he wants you to contact."
"E-exactly," she agreed with a weak laugh.
Tae-kyung turned up shortly after lunch. First, he checked to make sure that Oh-lan was alone before going all the way inside the office and handing her the third note.
WITH ME
"Thank you, Tae-kyung," she said with an embarrassed smile. Judging from the disgruntled look on his face, he wasn't happy about being pressed into messenger service; and she supposed it was only right to show appreciation for his efforts.
"If I may," he answered, his voice just slightly more pleasant than a grumble, "I strongly recommend that you just say yes. You know he's not going to give up until he gets what he wants."
She supposed this means that she also had the A.N.JELL leader's stamp of approval, and laughed self-consciously. "I'll take that into consideration."
Oh-lan expected Mi-nam himself to turn up after that, but he called her instead. "Park Oh-lan," he said in a nasal voice that she guessed was supposed to sound automated, "I have your cat. If you want to see him alive ever again, come to Room 216 right now."
She frowned. She hadn't brought Genghis to work that day; and there was no way he could have taken the cat from her apartment, unless he was a stalker and a criminal. "Are you serious?!"
"Come to Room 216 or else he will be... cat food." He hung up without another word.
"Is there a problem?" asked the department's secretary, who was on her way back to her desk with another piece of cake.
"Something about a problem with the reprint of the book, I think," Oh-lan improvised quickly. "I'm not sure, though - the message was kind of garbled. I should go check it out."
Room 216 proved to be incredibly hard to find. After a couple of wrong turns, she was grumbling just like Tae-kyung, and toying with the idea of just giving up, which would have the added benefit of making Mi-nam wait for nothing. However, something compelled her to keep looking. It was probably the fact that the wild goose chase was giving her the opportunity to get away from her desk for a while, she thought. Yeah, that's probably it.
After a seeming eternity, she finally found the room, and rapped on the door marked "216." It opened and an arm reached out to pull her inside.
"You really have a thing for supply closets, don't you?" Oh-lan remarked when she found herself standing with Mi-nam inside a tiny storage room.
"They have ambiance," he told her loftily. She arched an eyebrow, and he hastened to add, "And yes, I know what the word 'ambiance' means. I looked it up."
That got him a smile. "Good for you," she praised him, then glanced around. "I don't see Genghis."
"Obviously, it was all just to get you to come here." He grinned. "And you either fell for it, which I don't think is possible, or you knew it was BS but showed up anyway."
His grin widened when she blushed, but of course she didn't tell him which of his guesses was right. "If I'm not here to retrieve my cat," she said instead, "then why am I here?"
"Two things," he told her. "The first is that I have to give you this." "This," of course, was a piece of paper that said:
?
"I should always end a sentence with a punctuation mark, right?" Mi-nam explained when she looked up from the note.
That got him a laugh. "Yes, you do," she said agreed easily. "OK, so we've got that out of the way - what's the other thing?"
"The second thing is...." He stepped a little closer to her. "Now that I've asked you a proper question, what's your answer?"
Oh-lan blushed again, fidgeting with the note. For a moment, he thought he finally had her right where he wanted her, but she raised her chin and looked him squarely in the eye despite the color in her cheeks. "What's in it for me?"
"What's in it for you?!" he repeated with an incredulous laugh. Of course she wasn't going to give in without a fight. "Hel-lo, I'm freakin' Go Mi-nam!"
She shrugged. "So?"
"That means I'm extremely charming and good-looking," he explained patiently, and noted that she didn't disagree. "And it means I make pretty good money, which means I can buy you lots of cool presents - which I'm sure you've noticed."
"Yeah, not a day went by without my noticing that. All the girls at the office love the cake, by the way."
"I'm glad. Being freakin' Go Mi-nam also means I travel a lot, so I'll be out of your hair most of the time. And that I'm a really good kisser."
"Yeah, I know a bit about that, too," she mumbled, looking embarrassed.
Mi-nam chuckled. "And it means I'm absolutely crazy about you, and I'll never cheat or lie to you. I mean," he added hastily when she narrowed her eyes at him, "I know I did it before, but it won't ever happen again."
"It better not."
"Yes, ma'am," he agreed humbly. "So... will you go out with me?"
"Maybe."
"Oh, come on!" he exclaimed. "We've been over this a thousand times already, and you've had more than enough time to think about things. Who knows, next time it might just be too late."
Oh-lan's eyes widened, which he took to be a good sign. "What do you mean?" she demanded, sounding gratifyingly alarmed. "Are you giving ultimatums now? If you're getting sick of this whole thing, then why do you keep doing it?"
"I'm not getting sick of anything," he soothed her, and quirked an eyebrow. "What I mean is, even though that jerk I punched at your farewell party is too busy trying to get his credibility back to do anything about it, he might still sue me for assault someday. If I go to jail because of you, I should have something to show for it, right?"
"Oh." Caught off-guard, she tried to salvage her dignity. "Yes," she agreed casually, "I suppose you do."
Mi-nam's heart started to pound. "Really?" he asked, a hopeful smile dawning on his face.
She blushed, but gave him an answering smile. "That was incredibly stupid, but it was also really sweet."
"If I had known that that was all it would take to convince you, then I would have done it a lot sooner." He pulled Oh-lan into his arms, grinning when she didn't resist. "After all, nothing says 'I love you' like a punch in the nose."