I was woken by the sound of phones buzzing around me. Groggily, I rubbed my eyes and my heart nearly stopped beating at the sight of our room full of people. All glued to their phone screens.

Namjoon looked terrified. I had never seen someone look so scared in their life, and Jin was resting a supportive hand on his shoulder. Noticing I was awake, everyone's eyes seemed to turn to me. Was I still asleep? Was this just a very vivid, very real lucid dream?

"Rachel went to the press," Namjoon whispered, his voice barely audible but it was enough to make my whole body freeze with fear.

Rachel. Last year. The proposition. My replacement. Slowly my brain connected all the dots, and my eyes widened with complete and utter shock.

"How?" was all I could get out, my throat closing up with pure fear.

"She found a stupid loophole in the agreement," he continued, his eyes looking like they were brimming with tears, "She leaked her own phone conversations, claiming to be a hacker."

"Where do we go from here? What can we do?" I asked, running my hands through my hair furiously as I tried to think of any possible solution.

Something like this would ruin their career. More than that, it would ruin their lives.

"In the messages you're named," Jimin finally said, and suddenly the air in the room closed around me.

Picking up my phone like a bomb, I turned it on and had to clasp my hand to my mouth in order to stop the scream exiting my mouth. 106 missed calls from my family and friends, hundreds of thousands of messages on Twitter, and more calls than I could count from unknown numbers.

Dropping it like it was burning hot, I could barely meet the stare of anyone in the room. I wanted to yell at them all to leave, to hold me close, to tell me that it would all be okay.

My life was over.

The sinking feeling swept through me, making my heart and stomach heavy. The whole world now knew my dirty secret, and there was no escaping it.

Finally lifting my shameful head, I looked at the fearful faces of the boys in front of me. They looked so young. I knew what was going through their heads: was she worth it?

Was the few times I slept with them worth losing everything they had worked towards? The answer was undoubtedly no. I felt guilt pile on me despite the fact that I was blameless. I had merely done what I had been told.

Kissing the forehead of every boy, Namjoon sent them out the room and came and sat next to me on the bed. We remained in a heavy silence as both of us played over the events that had got us in this position.

And then he broke down into tears. Shoulders heaving, body shaking, I watched as he sobbed next to me. Placing a hand on his cheek, I wiped away as many tears as I could but nothing could stop the floods of water that rolled down his cheeks.

"It's all my fault," he choked out, balling his fists and slamming them on the mattress beneath us, "It's all my fucking fault."

"No one is guilty. No one is blameless. You did what was asked of you, and that's what a good leader would do," I replied, trying to stop the shaking of my voice which was quivering with pure fear.

"Everything we worked towards..." he couldn't finish his sentence as he sobbed again, nestling his head into my shoulder while he cried.

I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do or say that would rectify the situation. Because this was beyond the power of any of us. It was a monster; out of control and hideously destructive. People were publicly shamed for using plastic straws, how would they react to the biggest group in the work employing a girl for the sole purpose of sleeping with them?

I couldn't fathom how one post could pull down someone's whole career. These boys had worked their whole lives to get to where they were, and I had indirectly pulled them back down. Hearing Namjoon sob only made my guilt build, and I clung to him with the hopes that perhaps my love for him could mend the breaking of his heart.

Everything was frozen in time as we lay there. Nothing seemed to be making any sense, and we existed in a state of pure confusion. How would this affect our lives? Most importantly, how would we solve these problems?

My petty feelings of loneliness now felt highly insignificant in the face of something of this magnitude. This was something so out of our understanding or grasp that all we could do was brave the consequences together. BTS had been through scandals before - even I had been through a band-related scandal - but this represented something a lot more serious.

It would decide the fate of the group. Because this was not just any other scandal. This was image-breaking, reputation-ruining, and something that people simply did not recover from. As their future seemed to be crashing into flames in front of him, all Namjoon could do was cry. He was beyond coping, and instead was hoping that his tears would somehow reverse time.

I knew that as he looked at me he wished he had never met me. I knew that he wished I would disappear off the face of the earth.

I knew he wished he didn't love me.

-

scandal time! can't just send her to NCT this time boys.

please vote and comment if you enjoyed 💜