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I hate that it makes me immediately defensive. I don’t need to defend myself against this kind of stuff anymore. I proved that I earned that role with my talent.

“The drama world is definitely different,” I say slowly. “People aren’t as into online gossip.”

Her gaze turns caustic and I immediately regret my choice of words. Maybe being away from the K-pop scene has made me too careless.

“Gossip?” Yunseo laughs. “Your scandal rumors hurt the whole group. And doesn’t the fact that you ran away prove some of them were true?”

I shake my head. I don’t want to get into this, I shouldn’t have even started this conversation. “I just want to do my job in peace.”

“Are you saying that I’mbotheringyou?” Yunseo’s voice rises. “Eonni, come on.” Mika is pulling on Yunseo’s arm. She clearly doesn’t think this is the best thing to do here.

I try one last time to fix things. “I’m just saying we should try to move past things so it doesn’t have to be so uncomfortable between us.”

Yunseo finally lets her smile fall away to fully sneer at me. “You don’t even know how uncomfortable I can make things for you.”

My hands itch to push her away, but I grip my skirt to hold them in place.

“Eonni!” Mika finally succeeds in pulling Yunseo back now.

Yunseo replaces her sweet smile for any passersby. “It was great seeing you again, Hyeri-ssi!” She blows a fake-ass kiss at me before striding away. Mika sends me a disappointed head shake before following.

And, more than anything, that bothers me. Does Mika really think this was my fault?

I sigh. Maybe she’s right. Despite my best efforts, the wrong thing so often comes out of my mouth. I’m horrible at being quick on my feet with that stuff. It’s why I’m not great at interviews and variety shows. And was flagged as one of my biggest weaknesses by my company. I let myself fall into my seat, closing my eyes. I feel completely drained now.

I focus on relaxing my body by zones. First my shoulders, then arms, then hands before I relax my legs and feet.

Move past it. It doesn’t matter right now. Focus on your performance.

The mild meditation is sort of working; I can pull in full breaths again. And I no longer feel like I want to cry. Just another minute of careful breathing and I should be back to normal.

“Hyeri-ssi?”

I open my eyes to see a crew member standing in front of me. The monitor behind them shows that the commercial break is just starting, so there’s no way I need to go onstage yet.

I worry for a moment that Yunseo complained about me. Would they kick me out as MC just because of her complaints? But then the crew member nervously says, “We need a favor.”

“Oh?” My anxiety abates a bit. If they’re asking for a favor, then that means I’m not in trouble. Still, I take a long breath to help steady myself.

“We need you to delay for five minutes,” the crew says.

“Delay?” I ask, nerves building.

“Yeah, here’s the script. It’ll be a quick interview with AX1S.”

“Why?” I ask, my head spinning as I glance down at the new cards. Something I haven’t memorized yet. What if I mess up?

“The next act is having a wardrobe malfunction. Some part of her outfit just went missing, so they need some time to look for it.”

“Missing?” I repeat, my brain mush right now as I try to process everything. Then I remember who sings the duet with Moonster, Kim Ana.Heroutfit. So, it’s Kim Ana who has the wardrobe malfunction.

“Oh,” I say again, my heart dropping. But for a different reason than performance anxiety. Because of course it’s Kim Ana. The very person that article claims I bullied. And one of the ways was allegedly hiding her costume.

Now it’s happening again. At an event I’m cohosting.

Great, this day couldn’t get any worse.

The thing is Kim Ana and I were friends at first. Or I thought so, at least.