( ⭐️ )

❛ do you think a sorry is
going to fix everything?! ❜

—

"chaeyeon!" an angry voice shouted, echoing through shin chayeon's ears — causing her to jump out of her seat in fear.

oh no, not again.

it was a rainy saturday morning, and chaeyeon had just woken up around an hour ago.

after grabbing an iced americano from starbucks — with specifically four espresso shots — chaeyeon returned to her apartment wanting a restful day with some peace and quiet, as she had been working non-stop for the past few weeks preparing the release of her new full-length album, "noir".

chaeyeon was a k-pop 4th generation solo artist, known by the stage name 'aria', who was signed under yg entertainment, one of the leading entertainment agencies in south korea. though the twenty-year-old had debuted only a few years back, she was already a million seller artist.

she sat down by her dorm window watching raindrops race each other down the glass panes, while sipping on her quite arguably — though she would never admit it — strong coffee.

that's when the angry voice broke through her peaceful aura.

chaeyeon lived in her apartment alone, with the exception of one of her assistant managers occasionally sleeping over in the guest room — which was why she didn't expect anyone to be in her apartment today.

"shin chaeyeon!" the voice called again.

a middle-aged woman stormed into the room where chaeyeon was sitting, wearing an angry expression on her face — clearly unhappy.

that's when the screaming and angry shouts began. "...you are a disgrace to our company, chaeyeon! i cannot believe you have done this."

chaeyeon sighed as she fought the inner urge in her heart to talk smack back to her manager who was currently going off on her.

according to her manager, chaeyeon had done something unexplainably wrong — posting a video to her tiktok account that apparently was 'unfit' for an idol under her company, to do so.

her fans had been requesting for her to dance to one of the most popular songs in the platform for months, "anti-romantic" by tomorrow x together.

as chaeyeon was very close friends with a few of the members of the group, of course she was anything but against the idea of it. she posted the video and it quickly garnered much positive attention.

her company on the other hand, was infuriated that she had so openly supported another artist group, and clearly did not approve of it at all.

"chaeyeon, do you know how unacceptable this is? supporting another artist like this? especially a boy group — do you know what kind of rumors can arise from this? we cannot lose our position as part of the big 3 entertainment companies — you cannot keep making careless decisions like this!" the manager, by the name of yoojung, exclaimed in infuriation.

chaeyeon despised yoojung. though the fourty-something-year-old manager was in charge of practically chaeyeon's entire career, she never genuinely cared about how chaeyeon felt. she was solely in it for the economic benefits, and that made chaeyeon extremely uncomfortable.

chaeyeon lowered her head in defeat. as much as she wanted to talk back, she knew it would only cause more trouble.

"sorry, yoojung-ssi."

"sorry? do you think a sorry is going to fix everything?!"

"i said i'm sorry. i already took the video down. i'm not sure what else i can do—"

"shut the hell up." yoojung narrowed her eyes at chaeyeon, and extended her hand out in front of her. "your phone. give it to me. now."

"what?"

"you heard me. give me your phone. now."

chaeyeon slowly reached her hand into her pocket, fishing her phone out with uncertainty.

immediately yoojung snatched the phone out of the girl's hand and turned to face the door.

"wait, yoojung-ssi—"

angrily strutting towards the exit, yoojung turned around sharply to look the scared girl in the eyes once more. "if you're going to ask when you're getting this back... the answer is not for a long time."

the manager stomped towards to the door, slamming it on her way out, leaving a speechless  and terrified chaeyeon standing frozen in her apartment living room.

( ⭐️ )

"ennik, what am i going to do?" chaeyeon cried out in despair to her best friend, jeon somi.

like chaeyeon, somi was a solo artist herself, instead she was under yg entertainment's sub-label, the black label.

the pair had met years ago when they had both trained under jyp entertainment together. even after both had left the company, the two remained the best of friends.

both girls were canadian and spoke english as their first language, meaning they instantly got along the second they met.

chaeyeon's korean father and chinese mother had immigrated to quebec city in canada shortly after their marriage, meaning both chaeyeon and her older brother grew up in an english-french speaking environment.

being surrounded with so many languages since birth, chaeyeon was known as one of the many polyglots in the kpop industry — being fluent in english, french, korean, as well as mandarin.

"oh chae," somi empathetically sighed, "i'm sorry that happened to you," consoling chaeyeon, "that's so terrible i can't believe that demon reacted so terribly to a simple tiktok."

chaeyeon frowned cupping her face with her palms, trying to hide the anguish inside of her. "what am i going to do without my phone for... who knows how long?"

"maybe it's a good thing...? it's nice to take a break from social media sometimes." somi replied, once again trying to reassure chaeyeon.

"my fans are going to know something is wrong, i never go a day without tweeting something stupid on twitter. i don't want them to worry... that's what i'm scared about." chaeyeon sighed. "i guess there's nothing i can do now."

"cheer up, chae. let's go get your favorite... honey chicken?" somi suggested, grabbing chaeyeon's hand, not giving her a chance to disagree.

chaeyeon smiled at her best friend's thoughtfulness, as well as the idea of her favorite food.

"let's go."

( ⭐️ )

a/n !

first of all, sorry for neglecting this book for so long 😭 i'm finally updating !!!! i double updated this book and my other book today IM ON FIRE

second of all, if you want to know more about chaeyeon's details i highly suggest you all check out her oc book ! i'm not able to mention every single detail about her here, but the oc book covers it all :') i know adi is working really hard on it so we'd both really appreciate it if you gave it a quick read <3 i'll link it in a comment here →