"Pepper, I think I'll go freshen up before the interviews. Po, do you mind accompanying me, please?" Thame asked. From Pepper's point of view everything seemed absolutely normal: considering the delicate situation, it was of uttermost importance that his image was spotless; also, asking for Po to be by his side in case he didn't feel good was surely understandable.

When Po heard that, he had the same idea as Pepper. On top of it, he immediately accepted, since it was an easy escape from Earn. He knew that nothing bad would have actually happened, but Po was already under so much stress, that he preferred to focus on just one problem at the time.

"Calm down now, then you can tell me what happened, if you want" Thame said after they reached the restroom. Po stared at him for a moment, surprised that his reaction was actually that obvious. If it wasn't for the discomfort Po was feeling because of Earn, he would have actually appreciated Thame's attention.

"What do you mean? I'm calm..."

"Alright... well, if you don't want to attend the interviews, you can wait at the entrance of the dining hall. It shouldn't take long before the dinner is served" Thame wasn't convinced by Po's answer, but he decided to avoid further questions to not aggravate the situation. After that, they quickly went back to the lobby.

"And here is the man you were so anxiously waiting for!" Pepper exclaimed after Thame finally came back. The singer sat on an armchair while a consistent number of journalists stood around him waiting with their phones to recorder the guy's answers.

The first few questions weren't really that problematic: just as Pepper hoped, when Thame was asked about his secret return to Thailand, he simply repeated Pemika's version of the story, and apparently he managed to convince that he simply wanted some privacy. The real problem arrived when questions regarding his departure for Korea came.

"Thame, there are different points of view regarding your decision to leave for Korea. Some speculate that you decided to leave because you felt that the Thai industry was too tight for you, while others affirm that there were some serious conflicts inside your previous group, could you tell us what is the truth?"

That question hit him hard. If those were really the most shared opinions, then it meant that almost everyone considered him some sort of ambitious, selfish and overly confident guy.

"I... I understand the reason behind these assumptions, but there were no real conflicts between me and the members of Mars. We all got along quite well. Pepper here will tell you the same" Thame replied.

"Isn't it true that just before you went to Korea, your coworker Dylan performed a song aimed against you?" that journalist wasn't going to surrender easily.

"That was no big deal. I know that Dylan can become quite impulsive when it comes to our friendship. We simply had a small fight because of different views, and then someone decided to p... publish that video. Nothing more" Thame replied. Po and Pepper quickly exchanged a glance, having both noticed Thame's subtle stutter.

"Are you sure you don't want to add anything more?"

"Absolutely. There is n...nothing else to say"

"I see. Your neighbors have complained about a big fight between you and Dylan. Do you want to tell us anything about it?" the journalist added with a smirk.

"You already know that our relationship b...between my period in Korea was surely tense, so y...you will understand that h.."

"And after a month he was still that angry? That seems hard to believe" another journalist intervened. Thame looked around, feeling alone in a crowd of enemies. Also the distance between him and the others that at first seemed to be sufficient, suddenly made him feel suffocated.

"I'm sorry to interrupt the interview, but I have to ask you to stick to just one question each. Regarding Dylan and Thame's fight: Thame is avoiding the topic because he doesn't want to speak on his friend's behalf. I can do it though, and Dylan sincerely apologized for his act, he was deeply disappointed because he feared that Thame kept his return a secret to avoid him, but that was just a misunderstanding between them"