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Ten days.

It has been.

No calls or texts from him.

And I didn't know what to do about it. If I should do anything at all.

I knew that I didn't want to go back to him. Not with the way he left me so easily broken on the floor.

Yet with each day and night that passes the more unsettling I feel in my own skin.

The nightmares of Minjae controlling whether I breathed or not with his iron grip squeezing my neck reminded me that even if Minjae  wasn't physically there, he was lingering.

I've tried to forget what has come to pass by spending every waking minute with the members, not that they minded. They were happy that I was eager to join them.

However, I could only trick my mind into an illusion for so long and reality wasn't shy from distorting it.

I wake up the next morning later than normal. Tiffany is already missing from her messy bedsheets.

I lift my body into a sitting position as I rub the sleep from my eyes. After yawning I gradually slip out of my old bed.

I drag my body into the oddly silent hallway while peeking into the other rooms that are empty. My ears catch several different distant voices conserving in hushed tones in the living room. As if someone wasn't meant to hear anything they are saying, that someone being me.

"How did they even found out?"

"The source had to be someone close. Otherwise how did they get those photos."

"Do we have to tell her? Won't this just complicate things for her? After all, half of it is false."

"We have to tell her. They know about them. The article is spreading like a wildfire and the company knows about it."

"Besides it already is complicated..."

"What's complicated?" The girls abruptly fall silent and their sights focus in on me.

There is a heavy silence in the air for two minutes.

"Something has happened." Sooyoung spoke up first. She walked closer to me with a grimace. Her phone held in her hands, she relunctly handed it over.

"The article was published last night." My eyes wonder down to the screen.

Written in bold letters the headliner said...

[★ Rumor] Taeyeon No Longer Living with Her Husband?

Along with a couple recent photos of me leaving the dorm with the members. There are some wedding photos shown of me and Minjae.

My eyes linger on the wedding photos for a few moments before I scroll down further, more photos are attached. They aren't of me and Minjae, they are of Baekhyun and I.

Times when we would have small talk behind the scenes.

In the article, it claims that those harmless conversations meant we were having an affair behind Minjae's back.

"They are bringing Baekhyun into this..." I said before I glanced up at the members then back down at the article.

Baekhyun has been there for me. The members don't tell me but I know he visits here often when he can. Sometimes when I peek out the window after I heard the front door close I see him walk into the chilly night.

He has done nothing wrong.

Yet he got dragged into this mess because he's associated to me and that isn't right.

"I have to do something..."

•

Hi, guys! I thought about making this chapter longer but this ending point was speaking to me. I have no idea what the next part might bring, I guess we'll find out together. How are you guys liking Taeyeon's winter album? I love Let It Snow and Shh, it makes me want to dance. I saw some clips of her concert, I wish I could go. I'm also looking forward to EXO's new winter songs coming out on the 26th. ❄⛄

-Jiselle🌸