A/N: Hi everyone, happy weekend! Uh, I seem to write longer and longer chapter for this story lol, this is the longest chapter so far...It's a mix of both Seulgi and Joohyun's POV and it's largely unedited because I'm a bit busy, so please excuse any grammatical error :D

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Seulgi had known that the night would be terrible.

She had known, with all her angered resignation, that the premiere night would have no chance to be pleasant at all – no matter how nice the movie might be or how great of a company she knew Sunmi would be – because she would have to watch Joohyun parade around with Bogum the entire night.

She had known this.

She had, however, not expected things to be this terrible for a whole different reason.

It had happened so quickly.

One moment, she was stealing glances at Joohyun from across the ballroom and feeling sick with jealousy, and the next moment, when she had barely turned her attention back to Sunmi for one minute, loud commotion broke out from Joohyun’s direction.

Seulgi didn’t get to see exactly what had happened, but the way everyone around her gasped in shock – eyes wide and hands clasping their mouths – told her instantly that something bad had happened.

Then, when her sight fell on Joohyun – fists balling and face red with a mix of anger aimed at Bogum and shock at herself – she knew, instinctually, that whatever bad thing that had just happened, had happened because of her.

The moments that followed after that, now that Seulgi looked back on them, felt like a blur of chaos.

People began whispering and pointing at Joohyun, and this made the angered look on Joohyun’s face morph into a wide-eyed, panicked one as she realized what she had done.

Seulgi had wheeled away from Sunmi and raced to her almost instantly before she could even think, but before she could get to Joohyun, blocked and slammed by many other bodies crowding the scene, Joohyun had fled the ballroom.

Seulgi vaguely registered Sunmi shouting her name among the commotion, but she could not, for the life of hers, stop running at the moment.

All she thought about was to find Joohyun and take her away from everyone at the scene, because everyone, who had murmured with only surprise at first, had quickly begun to talk about her with more suspicion and grimace as they speculated on what she had done.

Seulgi learned that night that confusion – or a lack of knowledge about a truth – could turn into an appalling judgment in the speed of light in the entertainment industry.

By the time she left the building, almost everyone who had attended the ball had spoken about Joohyun with malicious whispers.

Seulgi tried to ring her phone for up to 15 times that night but they were all unanswered. When she eventually got back to their shared apartment, she only found empty darkness gaping at her too.

Even now, three days later, she still didn’t know where Joohyun was. Her phone had been turned off and nobody – not even Krystal – knew where she had run off to.

It was like she was swallowed by the night after she fled the ballroom that evening.

“Seulgi? Is everything okay? You sounded really distressed on phone.” Sooyoung barely landed two knocks on her door before Seulgi sprang up from her sofa, dashed to the door, and flung it wide open.

“Sooyoung!” She nearly cried with relief. “Thank god, you manage to come up here.” She threw wary glances around the corridor before pulling her friend inside and closing the door hurriedly. “I was worried you couldn’t get past the reporters.”

“It is a nuisance down there.” Sooyoung scowled, thinking of the mess she had just gone through. “They’re camping at the lobby and spilling out at the parking lot like vultures. It’s absolute insanity. Can you even leave this damn building?”

“No.” Seulgi groaned, throwing herself onto her back on the sofa and covering her face with her palms. “I can’t go out. I mean, most of them probably don’t know who I am, but I’m worried that someone may recognize me as her friend and grab me for questions –"

She halted midsentence and pulled her hands off of her face to stare at the TV when the news channel came on with the issue she was distressing about. It talked about how, apparently, Joohyun had slapped Park Bogum in front of everyone that night.

Joohyun. Slapping Bogum. In front of everyone.

Seulgi had heard it over and over again from two days ago but she still struggled to believe it. It sounded absolutely unbelievable.

If someone had told her this one week ago, she would have scoffed at them for making such a poorly believable rumor. But she couldn’t scoff at it now because it was true.

Joohyun had slapped Bogum in public, for whatever reason she had.

Seulgi’s heart was a mix of confusing, chaotic emotions at this turn of events. While she should be happy that this might mean Joohyun was ending things with Bogum, her petty satisfaction was dwarfed by the giant, looming worry she had for her friend.

Because the backlash Joohyun had been receiving was horrible.

“Do you have any idea why she would slap Park Bogum?” Sooyoung flopped down on the sofa beside her and joined her watching the TV.

“No. I actually have no idea.”

Sooyoung gave her a long, disbelieving look.

Seulgi sighed. “No, Sooyoung, seriously. I really don’t know anything about this one. This is –” She paused, unsure of what to say to express the depth of her confusion. “This is ridiculous. You know how career-driven Joohyun is. She’s always so calculative when it comes to her work. She loves it so much. She will never do anything that can destroy her career like this.”

Seulgi gestured distraughtly at the TV, where the reporter was still talking about the young rising star Bae Joohyun caught in fire after allegedly losing her temper and slapping her ex-costar Park Bogum at a public event!

Her heart sank at the way the news was framed to be so heavily critical against Joohyun and be so incredibly in favor of Bogum.

Why does no one even bother to ask why she has slapped him in the first place?

What if he has done something awful to deserve it?

“Right. I think so too.” Sooyoung’s face contorted into a frown as she watched. “Do you think maybe they were…really dating and he cheated on her or something? Maybe she got brokenhearted and lost her mind for a second?”

“No.” Seulgi said instantly, bile rising from her stomach to just at the thought. But then, she hesitated on her own conviction.

Joohyun had always insisted that she wasn’t in a real relationship with any of her movie boys – that she was only hanging out with them because they often introduced her to important people in the film industry – but what if it had changed?

What if she was actually falling in love with Bogum somewhere along the way? The thought made the bile at the base of nearly hurled out of for real.

“Um…are you okay?” Sooyoung rose a concerned eyebrow at her. “You look like you’re about to puke.”

I am, Seulgi thought.

However, as much as the part of her heart that loved Joohyun in that…less platonic way felt ill at the thought, the other part of her that still loved Joohyun as her best friend knew that this was not the time to be rotting with jealousy.

There was a more pressing issue at the moment and it was to find where Joohyun was. It had been three days since she disappeared and Seulgi was starting to worry that one of her crazy fans-turned-antis had gotten ahold of her.

The beeping of her phone saved her from her grim thoughts.

“God. Can everyone from college stop asking me if all these witch-hunt articles about her are true? These are all based on random video snippets edited together to make her look bad!” Seulgi groaned once she read through her texts.

Sooyoung peeked at her phone and grimaced too. “They have started digging into past videos and making up theories, I see.” She read along with Seulgi before her eyes caught on an article with big, bold letters. “Hey, what’s this one?”

Seulgi stopped scrolling and tapped on it.

Breaking news! Park Bogum’s agency finally released an official statement regarding his scandal with Bae Joohyun!

Despite insisting many times in past that she didn’t have relationship with any of her costar, rising actress Bae Joohyun, as told by her ex-costar Park Bogum, was apparently lying to us! Park stated that they had been dating since their drama-shooting days three months ago.

However, he explained that their relationship had to come to an unsavory end, because he discovered that Bae was not like who she made herself out to be. Park said that the presumably sweet actress turned out to be a very temperamental and possessively controlling, constantly showing violent outburst if he interacted with another female costar.

Park said that their latest discourse three days ago was one of the examples, where Bae had lost her temper and ended up using physical violence because she was irrationally jealous of him working with his new costar, Lee Hyeri.

He apologized on her behalf to all of the fans and hoped for everyone to stay calm –

“This is – this is absolute bull crap!” Seulgi shot up from the sofa and glared at her phone screen, fingers squeezing so hard around it, she might shatter it.

Sooyoung’s eyes widened and that was when Seulgi realized that she had just…cursed really, really loudly. She swallowed and took a step back to calm herself down. But god, goodness gracious! She just felt so angry at the sheer unfairness Joohyun was getting.

“Okay…I need you to calm down, champ.” Sooyoung stood up and peeled her fingers away from her phone slowly, taking it away so she wouldn’t hurl it across the room.

“I’m just – this isn’t right!” Seulgi nearly cried, chest heaving with frustration. “Joohyun isn’t anything like that. Sure, she can be difficult to deal with sometimes, but she isn’t – she isn’t someone abusive like he’s trying to paint her to be! Did you see all the comments on that article? They’re all buying his words without a single doubt and cursing her like she’s some sort of psychopath!”

Sooyoung’s face was grim as she read through the article again. Then, when she was done, she let out a long sigh that only served to make Seulgi feel even worse because it just sounded so defeated.

“Well, Seulgi. Welcome to your first glimpse of the real entertainment industry, I guess. This is the place where men’s words weigh ten times more than women’s, while their mistakes weigh ten times lighter.” She paused, feeling terrible herself. “This was one of the reasons why I left. And I’m sorry to say this, but Joohyun is screwed.”

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Joohyun was screwed.

Just one week ago, when Krystal had warned her to be careful when playing with fire, she had brushed her off nonchalantly because she had firmly believed that nothing out of sorts would ever happen to her.

She had believed, with strong conviction, that she would never trip over herself while playing her usual games with boys, because all her charades with them were orchestrated carefully to get herself what she wanted and were never involved with any real feeling.

And yet, here she was, hiding in her friend’s apartment and biting her fingernails anxiously not one week later, watching the entire world she had carefully built for herself brick by brick crashed into fire because of her emotions for a whole different person instead.

It was over.

Everything she had worked hard for was over because she couldn’t control her stupid temper when she had heard the insults aimed at Seulgi.

The painstaking long hours she had pulled off to perfect all her roles and gain her reliable reputation. The physical wellbeing she had sacrificed during many sleepless nights and unforgiving diet. And even the dignity she had abandoned sometimes to get what she needed.

Over. It was all over and burning in hell because she couldn’t control her fury for one short moment.

Joohyun wanted to feel angry at Bogum – wanted to scream at him for being such a low-blow bastard and for playing so dirty in his statement – but all she felt was anger at herself.

Anger for being stupid enough to lose control of her emotions and slap him in public. And anger for destroying her own dreams after believing so staunchly – almost arrogantly – that she would never make a mistake.

Stupid. She was so, so ing stupid.

“Hello? Yes, this is me, her manager. No, I told you, you couldn’t just cancel her contract!” Krystal’s voice blared from the other side of the room, growing progressively louder and higher the more similar calls she took.

Joohyun caved into herself on the sofa, hugging her knees to her chest and biting her fingernails even harder. At some points, they might start bleeding.

“She’s been the face of your brand for two years and you guys have profited a lot from her! You can’t just stick up to her when she brings you money and ditch her the second some lies about her –" Krystal paused, seemingly getting speechless as she listened to whatever the person on the other line was saying.

“Hey! I told you that the rumor isn’t right! She is nothing like that – hey! Don’t you hang up on me, you piece of – !” She cursed finally when the person ended the call one-sidedly, pulling the phone away from her ear and jamming her finger on it angrily.

Her face was boiling deep red and it only made Joohyun feel even worse because all of this mess had happened because of her.

“Remind me to never work with this bastard again in the future.” Krystal threw herself on the sofa across of her and hurled her phone away. “I don’t care how good his deals may be. I’m blacklisting him permanently.”

“You think there will still be a future?” Joohyun hated how both desperate and skeptical her voice sounded. She wanted desperately to believe in some miracles, but at the same time, she knew that her career was over.

The thought made her sick again and she curled even more into herself, hugging her knees tighter and making herself smaller.

Krystal stopped massaging her temple and opened her eyes to stare at her with a difficult look. “I guess not. Judging by the rate of things crashing at the moment.”

The dejected honesty in that statement was too much for Joohyun to handle. She shot up from the sofa and paced around anxiously, biting her fingernails again like a lunatic.

“Just…why did you do that, Joohyun? Why did you have to slap him in public?”

Joohyun whirled around to stare at her incredulously. “I know I’ve ed up big time. I’m sorry. I really am sorry for causing all these troubles. But I’ve been feeling ty enough without you pointing out how much I mess up, okay? So, can you please just – just be a friend at the moment?”

Guilt vanished the hard creases on Krystal’s face instantly as she realized how awful she had just sounded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel worse. It’s just that – I guess I get too worked up because of all the s I’m dealing with –"

Joohyun knew that she meant no harm. She knew that the bad days were just getting into both of their heads. She gave her apology a small nod before continuing to pace around the room nervously again to deal with her own head.

“But really, in a non-blaming way and only in curiosity as your friend, why did you do it, Joohyun?” Krystal’s question stopped her again. “I’ve worked with you for a while and I’ve never seen you lose your temper like that. You’ve managed to tolerate worse people in the industry before. So…why now?”

Joohyun dropped her hand from and gestured at the air frustratedly. “I’ve told you why. That bastard was saying nasty things about Seulgi. I couldn’t just stand still and listen to him –"

“I know what he said. You’ve told me. But Joohyun, you didn’t even lose your when some of your jealous costars called you worse names. You’ve been called a and a bunch other derogatory names. You didn’t even bat an eyelash. You stayed congenial with them even. So why did an insult aimed at Seulgi rattle you so much?”

“Well, because Seulgi doesn’t deserve any of that!” Joohyun’s voice raised slightly and then cracked as she swallowed. “I don’t mind myself getting called bad names because I’m aware that I’m not good, Krystal. I did things that aren’t so noble to get what I want. I’m aware of it. I’m no saint.”

She heaved a sigh and looked around in frustration. “But Seulgi doesn’t deserve anything bad. She is nothing like me and she only ever has the best intentions for everyone. So, when someone tries to hurt her, I just can’t help but get protective and furious."

Krystal took a moment to ruminate on her words before asking carefully. “So…you got mad at Bogum for trying to hurt her but you didn’t have any issue with the insult he said itself, right?”

Joohyun frowned, not really understanding what she was asking. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you had no problem with him calling Seulgi a lesbian, right? Like, you weren’t mad because you thought being a lesbian was a bad thing – an insult for someone to be – but because the way he said it was hateful, right?”

“Of course.” Joohyun said instantly, the other alternative not even crossing her mind.

However, a strange, inexplicable feeling moved through her with potent force again at the mention of Seulgi possibly being a…lesbian.

It was still the same feeling – the same strange, rapid heartbeats – she had gotten when she had first heard of it three days ago and the same feeling she had been trying to…push away from her chest ever since.

It wasn’t that she thought being a lesbian was a bad thing.

It was just that…she had never thought of Seulgi in that way before. Hell, she had never even really thought about the other ualities before. She knew that they were out there – existing somewhere – but none of them were ever in her day-to-day life, so they rarely flitted through her mind.

Is Seulgi really one?

Or was Bogum just sputtering nonsense because he was irritated?

“You look not so sure with your answer there.” Krystal’s voice was teasing but not unkind. If anything, Joohyun thought her expression looked uncharacteristically soft and patient with her.

It made her feel even more restless with her weird, hammering heart somehow, because she felt like she was seen for something that she couldn’t even see herself.

“Has Seulgi ever liked a dude?”

Joohyun’s throat swallowed against her will because she knew the answer to that and it only served to magnify the strange sensation in her chest. “No. She has never liked them.”

“Not even one?”

“Not even one.” She swallowed again, feeling the need to sit back down on the sofa somehow, so she did. Krystal’s patient gaze followed her and it made her voice come out scratchy when she spoke again. “But it doesn’t automatically mean she likes girls, right? I mean, maybe she just hasn’t found the right guy?”

“I suppose it can be the scenario, but the other scenario isn’t impossible too.”

Joohyun looked at her and the small, implicating smile on her face made her tangle her fingers on her lap nervously. “You think she’s a lesbian.”

“I’ve been told that I have an excellent gaydar.”

“Gaydar?”

“Gay radar, Joohyun. Geez. You really have been living in a heteroual bubble, haven’t you?” Krystal’s tiny smiled widened but remained completely patient with her as if she was speaking to a particularly slow child.

Joohyun didn’t know if she should feel offended by that. “Well, excuse me for being born in a completely heteroual environment. I didn’t get to pick.”

Krystal laughed finally, for the first time in three days.

Joohyun would have been relieved to see it if she wasn’t on the receiving end of the laugh. “How do you know so much about these things anyway?”

“Well, I’ve worked in the entertainment industry a few years earlier than you. I’ve met one or two gay actors and actresses before. They’re living very discreetly, but they exist.”

Joohyun blinked. “I’ve never met one before.”

“You have. You just don’t know because they aren’t out. Trust me. I was there with you when you came across some of them.”

It was…such a wild idea to her. All this time, Joohyun had just kind of assumed that everyone she met was, well, straight.

“Do you want to know why I’m nearly sure Seulgi isn’t straight?”

Joohyun wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer, and that was when she realized that the odd, nervous feeling she had been trying to push away from her chest was fear.

Fear of the change that would inevitably come to the defin