She looked up at the TV that was tuned in to some cooking program with the volume barely above a murmur. With the captions she could follow what they were doing without having to turn it up. Concentrating on the words, let her put her racing thoughts and regrets on hold at least for a few minutes.
Her mother had showed up a few hours after the incident, having already been on her way up to meet her daughter when she got the call from the hospital. As glad as she was to see her mom after such a long time abroad, she didn’t want to answer all the questions she inevitably threw at her. Seeing her daughter alone and distraught in a hospital room was undoubtedly a wrenching experience for her, but Claire couldn’t help but wonder if it meant she had to jump to all the worst conclusions.
How could you be so stupid as to get mixed up with a playboy like that? If he loved you, wouldn’t he be here? Do you really think you know him that well after only a few months? What do you mean you are going back? You can’t possibly think you still want to be over there after all this?
Claire didn’t really bother answering all the questions after she explained as much of what had happened as she felt she could. Nothing she would have said would have helped her mother understand. Her mom hadn’t really liked that she had left to begin with, and now she had a broken heart and an impressive scar to boot.
Visiting hours were coming soon and her mother would be back again. Really she was grateful, she just didn’t want to dwell on trying to explain herself without talking about things she really couldn’t share. She trusted her mom to keep secrets but she wasn’t sure that explaining things like dating bans would really help allay her fears. Maybe she really felt that she didn’t have a good enough reason to go back and hold out hope that Korea could give her anything more than tears at this point, but what did she really have to lose?
“Hello, honey,” Her mother, Diana Faroe, greeted as she entered the room. “I brought you your favorite take out in the city for dinner. I know they give you something, but I asked if I could when I left yesterday and they said it’s fine, so I thought I’d get you good food at least.”
“Thanks, Ma,” She gave her mother as good a smile as she could muster.
“Is, umm, anyone else going to come for a visit today?” Her mother asked awkwardly.
“I wouldn’t imagine so,” Claire confirmed with very little emotion.
“That’s….too bad,” She cleared her throat as she pulled the to-go containers out of the paper bag and set them on the over-bed table Claire had pushed slightly to the side. “I wasn’t sure what you would be in the mood for, so I got a lot. Just have what you want and I can take the rest with me when I go.”
“Thanks ma,” The food smelled good, she had to admit.
“The Jamaican restaurant has never disappointed,” The older woman said with a stiff sort of happiness.
“Yeah, it’s always good,” Her daughter agreed.
“So I asked the nurses when you can go home on my way in and they said tomorrow,” She gave her daughter a tight smile. “When can I pick you up to take you back with me?”
“I know I am being discharged tomorrow,” Claire replied softly. “That’s why the company is flying me back the day after. I’ve already gotten myself a room at the airport hotel tomorrow night.”
“You can’t possibly think that you really need to fly back there?” Her mother looked at her and after a pause added, “At least not right now.”
“I’m sorry I can’t stay longer,” She apologized, picking at her food. “I need to go back and sort things out over there. Besides, nothing is going to be made better by putting off flying back.”
“I don’t understand what is there for you,” Her mother told her in a pained tone. “I could understand if you wanted to go back to New York. You have friends there who can help you, who would take care of you, but what is there in Seoul for you? I know your job is done. Do you have another one? Do you have someone there who will help you take care of the stitches on your back?”
“I’ll be fine,” Claire insisted. “I just have things I have to do.”
“Is this about that boy?” Her mother finally flat out asked. “My understanding is that he is still on tour. If it’s about going back to him, he won’t be there, so what is the rush?”
“It isn’t about going back to him there,” Claire put down the bite she had been about to eat. “I know he won’t be there. And even if he was, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be welcome to come and visit him there.”
“Then what?” She huffed in frustration. “What can’t wait a week? A month?”
“I have to deal with the company, I have my things there, and I have to see if the job I had possibly lined up when I got back is still there,” She listed off to her mother with a sigh. “I can come back if I don’t, but there are still things I have to do either way.”
“We can talk about this tomorrow,” Her mother said to let the subject drop. They both started eating the takeout, neither saying much as they did. Eventually they managed to make some small talk, avoiding the elephant in the room to keep the peace. Her mother left a bit before the end of visiting hours, promising to return tomorrow whenever Claire was discharged to stay with her for as long as she was still in the city.
To her surprise Jihoon appeared moments after her mother left, obviously having tried to wait to see her alone. He looked awkward as he entered the room, reluctantly moving to her bedside.
“I didn’t expect to see you,” She gave him a nod of greeting and did her best to sit up straight in the bed.
“I have your ticket back,” He said as he handed the envelope to her. “The company has already moved all of your stuff into a storage unit and paid for the first month. When you get back, you’ll need to go by the office to turn in your phone, pass, and keys.”
“Of course,” She nodded, looking down at the ticket in her hands. “I’ll do that as soon as I can.”
“I can’t say I’m...” He faltered as he looked up at her sitting in the hospital bed, looking small and sad. “I wish things had turned out differently. It was nice working with you and I wish we had all made different choices in this.”
“I’m sorry I put you in this position,” Claire told him honestly. “I’m sorry for the position I’ve put everyone in and for hurting everybody.”
“I won’t say I’m not a bit disappointed that you lied to me or snuck around or whatever you want to say it was,” He sighed and fiddled with something in his pocket. “But I am sorry that things are ending this way for you. I don’t know if I would be allowed to give you a recommendation for any future jobs as long as I am still with KXO, but I would never say you were anything less than dedicated to your job if anyone ever asked.”
“I understand and I wouldn’t ask you to do that for me,” She offered him a sad smile. “I know that whatever goodwill I might have had is well and truly gone. Can you just do one thing for me?”
“It depends,” He told her honestly.
“Just tell all the boys that I said I am sorry for everything,” Her voice was small as she made her request. “And tell them that I was just fine when you saw me.”
“Do you really think they’d believe me if I said you were fine?” He gave a scoffing laugh.
“Maybe not, but maybe they still need to hear it,” Without thinking she gave a shrug and hissed at the burning pain it caused in her stitches.
“I can tell them,” He agreed after thinking for a moment.
“Do...do you think if I tell the company it was my fault, that I convinced him to be with me, that they would go easier on Cheol and the rest of the members?” She would do it regardless, but she wanted some hope that it would make a difference.
“It can’t hurt,” Jihoon sighed. “But even if that was true, I don’t know that it would change how the company sees this.”
“How does the company see this?” She needed to know in order to best couch her apology to take as much of the blame as she could.
�
��Cheol broke an agreement he made with the company and damaged the reputation of the group,” He recited, obviously having heard these same things many times over the past couple of days. “The rest of the group was complicit in keeping his bad behavior secret and have proven themselves untrustworthy, though less guilty of any direct violation of their contract with the company. Cheol, for his part, has proven that his top priority is not the group or the company and in doing so, has created a controversy that they may not recover from. The shareholders and the executives will be reading the public reaction to help decide their next steps.”
“What next steps?” She prompted.
“If the ending of the relationship is enough,” He started with the best case scenario. “Cheol and the members making public apologies to their fans for their behavior would likely be most of it. If it isn’t, but ending Cheol’s involvement in YTHTonic can allow the group to continue, he will be removed and the others will eventually return to a normal schedule, likely after a break. If the damage is too much for all the members, the group will be disbanded, but that is an outcome that no one really wants.”
“Tell them I’ve already agreed to end it,” She swallowed hard before adding. “Tell Cheol, too.”
“I don’t think he’ll take it well, but I will,” Jihoon assented.
“Better for it to hurt a little now but to save him and the group,” She knew, as their manager, he would agree with that.
“Yeah, if we can,” He nodded. “I have to get back and the visiting hours are ending anyway. I don’t think I’ll see you again, but...I’m not sorry we met, I just wish it had all ended differently.”
“I hope I can fix the disaster I have made of things,” She finally let herself lean back on the bed. “I’ll do what I can to not make things harder on you from here on out.”
“Good luck,” He said finally as he disappeared out the open door of her hospital room.
Claire carefully slid out of her bed and got into her suitcase, pulling out a small notebook and, flipping to a blank page, copied out a few of the contacts she had in her phone. She tucked the notebook back in her things and carefully pulled herself back into the bed.
It was her mess to clean up and her responsibility to do whatever it took to protect all the members as best she could. Over the next hour she backed up everything she could from her phone before she opened the chat application and the private group chat she had made for all of them to talk. There were messages there from not only the last two days, but from the last couple of hours there.
Claire-ssi, are you okay?
Claire-nim, will you come back?
What hospital are you in? Can we come see you?
I shouldn’t have looked, she berrated herself as her vision blurred with tears. With a couple of blinks to clear her eyes, she exited the group chat, then deleted the room, and along with it all the messages inside.
Next she opened the private chat she had with Cheol and diligently made her way through the entire history, deleting every picture, file, and message she had ever sent him. The process felt like crawling through a field of broken glass as she was forced to read through their memories, only to delete them, one by one. She did the same with the private chats she had with the other members before she deleted the application in the phone along with all her other personal apps.
Finally she reset the phone to factory settings to ensure there wasn’t anything left of hers on the device. It felt like she had just erased everything meaningful that had happened to her in the last six months. She just hoped that with it gone, they would all find it easier to let go and make a clean break with her. There is no goodbye which would have made this any easier, she told herself, and Jihoon would tell them she was okay. It would have to be enough for them to know that.
***
Jihoon returned to the hotel from his visit still feeling generally uneasy. He had already called the company to inform them that she had the ticket and to pass along that she had already agreed to break things off and to take the blame for the scandal. They seemed relieved that she was going to play along with a narrative that minimized the blame for the members. It would be the easiest sell that would protect the company’s investment in the group. Clean up was already underway back in Seoul with the local fan base but there was no telling how effective it would be yet.
He knocked on the door of Cheol’s room at the hotel, guessing that most of the members would be there at the moment. Using his spare key to the room, he unlocked the door after a couple of seconds to find most of the members gathered in piles on the two beds in the room. They were holding each other, comforting those that hadn’t yet accepted the consequences of what had happened.
“Hey everyone,” His presence made most of the members sit up slightly to give him a brief bow in acknowledgement of his greeting. “I just got back from the hospital,” a few faces came to attention at those words, clearly eager for some word about their friend’s condition. “Claire is doing fine. She will be returning to Korea the day after tomorrow.”
“Can we go see her? Before she leaves?” Hyunwoo sat up and scooted closer to the edge of the bed nearest Jihoon.
“I’m sorry, no,” Jihoon shook his head, his stomach knotting at the pained expression his words caused in the young man’s face. “I know you don’t like it, but it would be best if you accepted that you probably won’t see her again. She has already agreed to end her relationship with Cheol and since she is no longer with the company, you no longer have a reason to socialize with her.”
“She’s our friend,” Changho clenched his jaw, challenging Jihoon to contradict him.
“For your sake as well as her own,” The manager sighed, pressing the heel of his palm against his temple. “She isn’t any more. The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be for all of you.”
“How are we supposed to just accept that?” Minjun nearly shouted at him. “We know we did something wrong, but how can you expect us to be fine with never saying goodbye? With her just disappearing?”
“Follow her example on this one thing and just accept that this is for the best,” Jihoon pleaded. “She’s doing her best to clean up this mess and the least you can do is be grateful and not make any more waves.”
“What do you mean?” FX asked as he continued to stroke the hair of Cheol, whose head he was cradling in his lap.
“Someone has to take responsibility for what happened,” Jihoon met his eyes as he replied. “She knows that if it’s her, there is some hope of salvaging your careers. If you actually care for her, respect her decision on this.” With nothing more to say, the older man turned and left the room, hoping that the younger men would let all of this drop, for their own sakes.
“He can’t really think we’ll just be okay with that?” Jaejin said after the door clicked closed behind their manager.
“Would she really agree to just break up with Cheol and not see us again?” Hyunwoo asked the room.
“If she thought it would be best for us, yeah,” Wonjung slumped down in his chair, his hand covering the lower half of his face as he looked down at the floor.
“Did she ever answer the messages we sent?” Seunghoon asked from his seat on the floor. They hadn’t checked in a few hours, they realized. Kitae pulled out his phone and opened their chat app to check again.
“Omo,” His eyes went wide as he looked at his phone screen. “It’s gone.”
“What is? What do you mean?” FX leaned over to try and look at the younger member’s screen.
“The chat...all her messages...all the pictures she sent us. Everything.” The youngest member looked like he had been slapped.
“Everything?” Cheol sat up and made a bee line for his phone, which had been sitting on the TV table charging. He opened the app to find that, indeed, the group chat had disappeared. His heart clenched as he opened the chat with a contact now labeled ominously as unknown.
This message has been deleted
This message has be
en deleted
Where are you? We just got back.
This message has been deleted
Okay
This message has been deleted
He scrolled through as far back as he could bear to look. “It’s all gone. She deleted everything.” A sharp sob escaped him as he looked for the voice file she had sent him all those months ago of her singing. He had listened to it a dozen times over the last couple of days just to hear her voice. It wasn’t there. Not a picture of her busy at work, not a single good morning, or a link to something she thought of him when she saw. “Why didn’t I save it?” He asked aloud in anguish.
“How could we know she would delete everything?” FX said, crouching behind him and putting an arm around him.
“It’s all gone, she’s gone,” Cheol dropped his head into his hands.
“I’m so sorry, bro,” FX put his chin on Cheol’s shoulder. “Maybe we can try calling her?”
Jaejin pulled out his phone and pulled up Claire’s number in his contacts. He clicked the call button and put the phone on speaker so everyone could hear if she picked up. Instead, the phone played a message saying the caller was out of the service area and ended the call with a click.
“We can try again later,” Kitae suggested. “Maybe she can’t have her phone in the hospital. Or it’s off because she is sleeping.”
“It’s possible,” Changho had to play along with the possibilities to avoid crushing the hopes of the younger member.
“We could try calling hospitals ourselves? The front desk would probably know the area hospitals,” Hyunwoo proposed.
“That’s not a bad idea,” FX agreed. “I’ll call and ask.” Standing up, he made his way over to the phone on the table between the beds and pressed the button to connect to reception. The person on the other end was happy to help and gave them the number to the ten hospitals in the area they thought someone was most likely to be taken to from the airport. On the third call, they were told that they did indeed have a patient by the name of Claire Faroe but they could not forward the call to her room as the patient was resting. Yes, they could call back tomorrow and try again, but she was going to be released tomorrow so they might want to call earlier in the day.
The Tutor Page 46
