Onyx: Unity
Page 4
“Then why were you late?” Holly asked, folding her arms. “Why did I find shoes in that apartment which don’t belong to me or Kate?”
It took everything in me to not facepalm myself. Shoes. I had forgotten about the shoes.
JongB turned back to her. “I told you the truth, shooting ran late.”
“It was me.”
The room fell silent and Holly and the other members of Onyx turned to Jiwon. Each of them had their mouths open at least a little bit. “Jiwon?!” Youngbin asked him, clearly not believing him. “That’s the kind of dumb shit JongB would do!”
“Hey,” JongB objected. “It’s not, and I didn’t!”
Jiwon folded his arms and alternated between looking at Youngbin and Holly. “Look, the news had broken about the ‘fans’ outside our dorms and I knew full well that the moment Kate saw that, she was going to do some idiotic thing like get her fine ass down here and declare that she’s moving back to Las Vegas under some noble pretense bullshit of making life easier for us.”
Several eyes narrowed at me. “You promised,” CX told me, one of the owners of the glares.
“It’s not a pretense, and your lives would be easier if I was back in America,” I told them, sounding calm although I did feel guilty.
“Kate!” CX exclaimed in exasperation. “I thought we had covered this.”
“We had, and then your so-called fans started camping outside your dorm, demanding Jiwon leave.” I pulled myself free from JongB’s monkey grip and moved off the couch and into the gap between the couches and Holly’s desk. “I’ve been locked in an apartment for two weeks, and I get why, I really do, but I am still seeing these stories on the SNS sites and I am powerless to help you.”
“And that’s also what I want to talk to you about,” Holly said. She shifted her weight, swapping which legs were crossed, but kept her back straight. “However…” she turned to Jiwon and fixed him an unimpressed look. “Taking my couch out of the discussion, I am extremely disappointed in you for going to my apartment – and how do you know where I live, anyway?” she asked, going on a tangent before looking at me like I had given the address out.
“Jun,” he shrugged, unapologetically.
I could see Holly’s lip thin out into a line. She stared at Jiwon for a moment longer, and then slowly licked her lower lip. “You were told that, until you were told otherwise, none of you should be meeting up. What would you have done if you had been caught by the press? I’ll tell you what Atlantis would have done: nothing. There’s no way we could have explained that, and all of this,” she waved her hand at the other members of Onyx. “Finished in the blink of an eye? Just so you two could-”
“I didn’t go with the intention of fucking her,” Jiwon said, crudely. “I went because I knew how she’d react-”
“That’s not the point.” Instead of Holly telling him this, it was Youngbin. He looked pissed and I couldn’t really blame him. “And that’s not how you speak to the Vice Chairwoman. It was a dick move, Jiwon, and you know it. You could have called her. You could have come here to head her off.”
“Here?” Jiwon replied, incredulously. “This building has eyes! There are more people here than at Holly’s apartment.”
“Enough,” Youngbin said. His tone was calm, but his voice carried power.
“Yes, enough,” Holly repeated. She got to her feet but moved to the opposite side of the room to me. “Given the situation outside your dorms, you’re beyond lucky at the fact no one saw you and followed you. And given the situation outside of the dorms, Atlantis has purchased a new building for you to move into.”
“What?” JongB cried, jumping excitedly on the spot. “For real?”
Holly nodded. “I was looking at an upgrade for you and the other groups at Atlantis. I know your apartment is quite nice compared to others.”
She was talking about H3RO’s dorm. She’d mentioned a few times that our college campus dorm had been nicer than theirs, and ours, until we had moved off campus, sucked.
“However, they’re very basic and very small. We have purchased three buildings-”
“Please don’t split us up!” CX cried.
I looked at him, surprised at his reaction being so strong, and then remembered he was the newest member of the group and his previous group had been disbanded because of a different scandal.
“Holly’s not splitting you up,” I assured him, glancing at Holly and hoping I wasn’t making the wrong call on that.
“I am not splitting you up,” Holly confirmed. “I am doing some clever accommodation manipulation. Atlantis has officially invested in two of these buildings. One will be used as dorms for our trainees and rookies. The other is the one where the public will think you are moving to – your official home. Of course, we’re not going to give this information to the public, but we all know they have a way of finding this information out.” She paced back and forth before giving us a wicked grin. “Which is why we’ve purchased another building under a satellite company for you guys to live in. It’s a house with high walls and a gate, and more importantly, underground parking.”
“Seriously?” I asked. I had a feeling this was how people felt when they bought a lottery tickets and somehow, despite the odds, the numbers all matched up.
“Seriously,” Holly repeated. “But there is a slight catch, of course.”
“What could possibly be the catch?” JongB asked. He had been doing a little happy dance – I wasn’t sure if he had tried to be subtle with it, but he had failed.
“You can’t all be in it at once. Not very often, at least,” Holly explained, sympathetically. “The ‘main’ dorm; you have to be seen going in and out of it, or some of you, at least, to make it appear like things are normal.”
“I call dibs on moving into the house first!” JongB cried.
Holly winced, slowly shaking her head. “Actually, you’re going to be one of the last. You’re in and out with hosting K-Popped. It’s too much of a risk. The same goes for Youngbin as you’re working on some of the 1SO units’ song productions.” She looked at Jiwon. “Given all the attention is on you too, I think it would be safer for you to go to the dorm too.”
There was a knock at the door and Inhye poked her head in. She looked worried. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I need you, Holly.”
“I’ll be two minutes,” she told her assistant. She waited for the door to close before returning her attention to us. “With Sungmin off, Byeon Taeyoon is acting as your manager. He has been told about your relationship situation and while I can’t say he has taken it as well as Sungmin did, he knows how imperative it is to keep it a secret. That being said, in order to make this work, you must let Taeyoon know which residence you’re staying at, that way, if you are needed, you can be picked up. Hopefully, after you’ve returned from the rest of your tour, things will be different here and we can revisit this.”
“Thank you, Holly,” I told her.
Holly walked over to me, collecting her tablet on the way. She deposited it on her desk and then turned to me. “The good news is that it’s ready to move in tonight for you and a couple of the guys.” She glanced past me at the door and sighed. “I need to go. Just wait for me to get home and I’ll drive you and your things myself. If you speak to Inhye on the way out, she’ll organize a car for you to get back to mine now.”
“Thank you,” I said again, as Onyx echoed my words. While they got to their feet and bowed at her, I wrapped my arms around her.
We all filed out of the room as a woman around my age hurried in. Whoever she was, she was beautiful enough to be an idol. “Yoo Eunjung, how is life with Pure?” I heard Holly greet her before the door was closed on us.
“Who is Pure?” I asked, curious. I didn’t recognize the name from the Atlantis roster.
“A rookie group with Meropis Entertainment,” Xiao responded. “Why?”
“Is that a girl group?” I asked. “She’s stunning.”
Xiao shook his head. �
��Pure is a boy group.” He glanced over his shoulder at the closed door. “And I hadn’t noticed.” His eyes were fixed firmly on me, and lord, if the smolder in his gaze didn’t have the heat rushing between my legs…
Behind us, Youngbin cleared his throat. “We need to get back to our dorm and pack.” He gave a pointed nod of his head in Inhye’s direction, currently being distracted by JongB and CX.
Xiao leaned forward. “I will see you later, my tai hau,” he murmured in my ear. “We have a house to christen.”
And I needed to change my panties.
제 4 장
Home
It took me fourteen minutes to pack the few things I owned into the two suitcases that I had. To be fair, I had never properly unpacked to start with. Unfortunately, that left me with four hours waiting for Holly to return.
I was excited.
I was happy.
I was horny as fuck.
It absolutely wasn’t just about the sex, but damn it, Xiao had been sending me messages ever since I had gotten back, teasing me with what he was going to do. Only, it was in Chinese and the translator app wasn’t quite getting it right. And when I asked Xiao to translate, he just told me I would have to wait.
I was certain one message involved me being tied up.
Another thing I’d questioned.
Another thing I’d had a response of You will find out later…
In the four-hour wait time, I had worked out, had a cold shower, and tried to finish the end of a drama I’d been watching.
Finally, the door to the apartment opened and Holly walked in. She looked exhausted. My excitement to leave disappeared and I hurried over. “Are you OK?” I asked her. “Did this have anything to do with that woman who came to see you?”
“Yoo Eunjung?” Holly blew out a breath and moved over to the fridge, opening it. She pulled out a bottle of water and drank all of it before turning to me. “She’s at a different company so there’s very little I can do with that situation. No, my problems all come back to the demon-spawn half-brother. I think I’m going to need to go to China and deal with this. Or I would if my father would let me. I think he’s just scared I’m going to punch Sejin.” The bottle scrunched up in her fist.
Violence was not something I associated with Holly. Yet, when it came to Lee Sejin, I’d never seen her so angry. Things had gone on that she hadn’t even shared with me.
“Do you want me to stay here?” I offered. “We can get the tequila out?”
Holly laughed, placing the bottle on the side. “You would give up moving into your new house?”
“If you need me, yes.” No questions asked: that was what friends did.
“Move. I have made plans with Tae and Kyun later,” she told me before giving me a hug.
The two of us took the cases and few other bags of things I had accumulated, down to her Range Rover, packing them in the trunk. “I can’t believe you did this,” I told her as we drove across the city.
“I did it for me too,” she told me with a sly grin.
I whirled around in my seat. “You bought a house? You said three properties.”
Holly spared me a glance, her grin growing. “Hell yes, I did. And I said three because if Jun can’t keep a secret, I’m sure one of Onyx will spill the beans and I want to surprise them.”
I gave Holly a mischievous grin. “Maybe you need to spank Jun’s ass for that.”
Although Holly ignored my suggestion, she did turn pink. “I could have tried to get them all in my apartment, but it’s about the same size as the place they’re in now, only with less bedrooms.” I had no idea if that said more about the size of H3RO’s dorm, or Holly’s apartment. “They have official dorms too, of course.”
“I can’t believe you did this without telling me!” I protested. “I would have gone house viewing with you.”
“I did the buying while you were in America,” Holly explained, turning off one of the main streets. The road got narrower and windy, and more importantly, the houses had large walls.
“Are we neighbors?” I asked, trying to see any of the houses and failing miserably. That was a good sign.
“Not really. I couldn’t get two houses close together with enough security. But we’re still in the same city.”
She finally pulled up to a large wooden gate. There was a security panel sticking out, but instead of watching while Holly tapped in the code, I was examining the walls. They were at least two meters tall and had something like a roof on them. It offered some shelter, and they seemed newly constructed with bright red tiles. It took me a moment to work out this was a genius security option. Climbing over the wall was going to be a lot harder with that there.
We drove through the gates and up a long gravel drive to a white building with the same red tiled roof, although much duller in comparison to the walls around the grounds. It was a single-story building with few windows to the front but it matched with the traditional Asian style of architecture.
The driveway curled around the side of a building to a roller door which opened as Holly approached it. It surprised me that a single-story building would have underground parking, but then again, if you were rich enough, you could get what you want.
Holly drove down into the small garage pulled up by a door. After helping me get my cases out of the trunk, she turned to me and handed over a piece of paper out of her pocket. “The door and gate code are set to 0312188400. You’re welcome to change it but Taeyoon and Sungmin will need to know. I’d go in, but I’ve got that date.”
“Thank you, Holly,” I told her. “I have the bestest friend ever.”
“You know that’s not a word in any language, right?”
“You’re supposed to say ‘me too’,” I laughed, giving her one last hug.
I waited for her to drive up the exit ramp before looking down at the piece of paper in my hand. At the top was the code– I quickly added that into my phone’s memory – but there was a note underneath.
There are eight bedrooms so you can all have the space if you need it. I looked for seven but I couldn’t find any – I’m sure you’ll find use for it. You’re the first one in, so you get to pick first – I suggest you go for the one with the polaroid on the door.
I keyed in the code and discovered it opened to an elevator. It had only two buttons and I pushed the top one. After the shortest ride, the door opened. The floors were wooden and shiny. I pulled in my cases, shut the door behind me, and then toed off my converse. The house had already been decorated and furnished. Inside, everything looked brand new.
I was in a long hallway. The door at the bottom of the corridor was open and I could see a living room. Leaving my cases, I walked down, my mouth falling open at the size of it. It was freaking enormous! There were two corner couches in the middle of the room, angled to face a television which looked more like a small cinema screen. Behind one of the couches was a window which took up almost the whole wall. Although it was dark, I could see a garden, lit up by small, strategic lamp posts lighting a stretch of decking, some grass, and then an open view of… I wasn’t sure. It was too dark to see.
More impressive than the view outside were the ones inside. Specifically, the large framed photographs of Onyx – individual and group. Most of them I recognized, having taken them myself.
I turned back on myself to investigate the first room. The door opened up into a room with a glass table that would seat eight, and behind that, an open planned kitchen that looked to be twice the size of the one in Holly’s apartment.
I backed out and walked over to the mirroring door on the other side of the hallway. This one led to a gym – Xiao would be happy, and behind that, the open door was to a large bathroom.
Back in the living room, there were four more doors. All open, I could see a short corridor and closed doors down them. One of the doors had something stuck to it. Guessing it was the bedroom Holly had written about, I padded over the wooden floor, cool but not cold through my thin socks.
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I was right: it was one of the polaroid photographs I had taken in Athens, outside by the pool of the villa we had been staying in. It was just before things had gone downhill with Anita. It had been taken during dinner with all of Onyx, me, and a rare Sungmin. It was one that I could have released to the public because there was nothing in it that hinted at anything going on with any of them, but to me, it was a picture of happiness.
I toyed with the edges, contemplating pulling it off and taking it into the room Holly thought I would like, but instead, I left it there. Call me crazy, but it was my little token of good vibes and if I needed one of those anywhere, it was on my bedroom door.
I pushed the door open and almost instantly, my mouth hit the floor. The first thing my eyes had fallen on, the only thing that I could now focus on, was the bed. It wasn’t an elaborate four poster thing, or something with an intricate metalwork headboard.
It was the size of a freaking truck.
The only way that thing could be that big was if it was custom made. I’d slept in king-sized beds on the world tour and I thought they had been big, but this thing?
The seven of us could lie on it and not touch each other.
Unless we wanted to…
I moved over to it, lifting the edge of the orange blanket, and then the sheets below. Hell, it had a custom mattress too – it wasn’t two doubles pushed together, but one single entity.
Seven in a bed, and the female said, “Thank you, Holly Lee, you’re a fucking legend!” I declared to the bed.
I lowered the sheets, running my hands gently over them. Obviously, they were custom made too.
My best friend was a goddess. “Please give Holly multiple orgasms tonight,” I prayed, before flopping onto the bed.
I was in heaven.
I rolled over with a sigh and sat up to look around my room.
Back in college, Holly and I had ended up having a really random conversation about out dream houses. One thing I’d told her was that I wanted color in my bedroom. Orange or yellow because it was cheerful. Holly was all about the purples, but I wanted warmth.