Chapter Text
"So you'll be okay with or without Min-soo?" Lucy asked as they walked through the apartment door.
Doyeon nodded. "I'm going to wait and talk to him tomorrow, when I'm calmer."
"Sounds like a good idea," Lucy said.
"Well, see you later!" Doyeon said as she headed to her room. "Thanks for coming out and listening to me!"
"No problem," Lucy called back. She went looking for Suyeon and found her in the kitchen, where she was eating ice cream straight from the carton and had stuck a straw in a bottle of soju so she could drink it more easily. "But apparently there's a problem here," Lucy said as she sat down next to Suyeon. She took the bottle of soju out of Suyeon's hand and put it down on the table. "What's wrong, Suyeon? I thought we agreed that you wouldn't try to deal with your problems this way!"
"We did," Suyeon said with a sniffle, "but I saw the story in the magazine, you were out with Doyeon and had your phone turned off, and I just didn't know how to deal."
"What story?" Lucy asked. "What magazine? What's got you so upset?"
Suyeon picked up a magazine from the far side of the table and dropped it in front of Lucy. "Here. Take a look at that."
Lucy picked up the magazine and read the page that it was open to. Her jaw dropped and her face got pale.
"Everyone!" Lucy yelled as she grabbed Suyeon's hand and dragged her toward the common room. "Come to the common room! Band meeting! Right now!"
"Is this where we are?" Elly asked as she came into the room. "Just anyone can call a band meeting now?"
"Suyeon's not in any condition to call it," Lucy snapped, "and this is super serious!"
"Okay," Elly said, raising her hands as if to fend Lucy off. "Just a little joke. Not trying to piss you off. But apparently this isn't a joking time. What's up?"
Lucy shook her head. "We need to wait for the others - I think I'll only be able to go through this once. That's why I called a band meeting."
Within just a few minutes, all the members had come into the common room and sat down, waiting to see what Lucy had to say.
Lucy stood up at the front of the room, the magazine in her hand. "People, we've got a problem," she said. She held up the magazine. "The Dispatch apparently sent a photographer out to follow me and Suyeon last weekend, and they got a shot of a brief" - she stressed the word - "brief kiss. They published pictures of us today, under the headline 'Weki Meki Lesbian Scandal'."
Doyeon snatched the magazine out of Lucy's hand and looked at the pictures. The other members crowded around her. "Oh, this is bad," Doyeon said, "this is so bad. So, so bad."
Rina looked at Suyeon. "What do we do?"
Suyeon looked up, tears running down her face. "I don't know," she said.
"First thing," Sei said, "is everyone needs to turn off their phone. We need to have some time alone as a band to try to figure out what to do."
"What's to figure out?" Yoojung asked. "Suyeon and Lucy are our members, and we stand behind them."
"Well, yeah, there's that," Doyeon said, "but there's the issue of what Fanmu is going to do."
Just then there was a knock on the door. Rina went and looked through the peephole. "It's Manager-nim," said.
"You'd better open it," Lucy said, slumping down on the couch next to Suyeon. "She'll be even more angry if she has to dig out her key and let herself in."
A few seconds later, Manager-nim came into the common room. Rina came in behind her and sat down on the couch next to Doyeon. Manager-nim turned to face them, staring at each of them in turn, her face an impassive mask. She pulled a magazine out of her purse and held it up. "I'm sure you've already seen what the Dispatch published today. I can only assume that it's true, since none of you called me protesting that it wasn't true."
They all sat quietly, waiting for her to go on.
"I just got out of a meeting with the directors," Manager-nim went on. "They wanted to disband the group, but I went to bat for you and managed to get a more favorable outcome."
"Thank you, Manager-nim," Suyeon said.
"Don't thank me yet, Suyeon," Manager-nim said. "You haven't heard yet the more favorable outcome I was able to negotiate. The best I was able to do was to get them to agree that you and Lucy should be kicked out of the group and the others should go on as a six-member group."
"They can't do that!" Sei shouted as she jumped to her feet. "If they kick Suyeon and Lucy out, I'll quit!"
Manager-nim sighed. "Your loyalty to your members really is admirable, Sei. But you know where you fall in the popularity polls. If you try to quit, the directors will let you, and then send the others out as a five-member group."
"Well then I'll quit!" Doyeon said, coming to her feet.
"Me too!" Yoojung added. Doyeon and Yoojung consistently traded the 1 and 2 spots on member popularity polls.
Manager-nim looked at Doyeon, then at Yoojung, then back at Doyeon. "Are you serious?" she asked gravely. "Have you thought through the possible consequences and decided that this is what you want? Are you sure that your loyalty to your members is worth your career with Weki Meki, possibly your entire career anywhere?"
"Yes!" Doyeon and Yoojung said as one.
Fire flashed in Manager-nim's eyes as she smiled, the first emotion she had shown since she came into the room. "Thank you, girls," she said. "You've given me something I can work with. Now, stay inside, keep your phones turned off, and don't answer the door for anyone but me. I'm going to have another meeting with the directors tomorrow morning. Fighting!" And with that, Manager-nim stalked out of the apartment, locking the door behind herself.
Suyeon turned to look at Doyeon, Yoojung, and Sei, her eyes welling up with tears. "I really appreciate you being willing to do that for me and Lucy, but I can't let you. If they kick us out of the group, I want you to stay in the group and keep making music." Lucy nodded her agreement.
"You also wanted to stay in the closet," Yoojung said. "You don't always get what you want. Weki Meki always has Suyeon as leader and Lucy as maknae, and if the managers don't want that, then the don't want me."
"We knew this was a risk," Doyeon said, "and we all accepted it when we agreed to keep your secret," Doyeon added. "Now that the secret's out, we've got to do our part to help deal with the situation afterward."
Suyeon jumped up and hugged Doyeon, tears running down her face. The other members clustered around her, rubbing her back and stroking her hair.
"I don't imagine any of us are going to sleep well tonight," Elly said, "but whatever tomorrow brings, we should probably face it as well-rested as we can be.
Suyeon disengaged from the other members as best she could, making her way toward the kitchen. "Thank you all for your support," she managed to gasp out between sobs, "you're the best members any leader could ask for."
Sei rolled over and checked the time on her phone. It was 2:40 in the morning, but she was wide awake. She decided to go to the kitchen for a cup of chamomile tea, hoping that would help her back to sleep. When she got to the kitchen, she found Lua already there, a steaming mug in her hands.
"You couldn't sleep either," Sei said quietly.
Lua shook her head. "I don't know how anyone could."
Sei put some hot water and a tea bag in a mug and sat down opposite Lua. "Tomorrow's going to be a huge day," she said. "Probably even bigger than the day we debuted."
Lua nodded. "I don't think the directors will send me, Rina, and Elly out as a group. If they let you, Doyeon, and Yoojung quit, they're going to just disband the group."
Sei took a sip of her tea. "What do you think they're going to do?"
Lua shrugged. "Who can tell what the directors are going to do. I mean, they're a bunch of ahjussis who make all their decisions based on the money."
"Then we should be okay?" Sei asked hopefully.
Lua shook her head. "I wouldn't bet on it." Sei looked confused, so Lua went on. "If people start a boycott of Weki Meki, it could spread to include Astro as well. Not to mention all the actors and actresses in the non-music part of Fantagio. They might decide that they're better off letting us go than standing up and fighting for us."
Sei sat quietly sipping her tea. "I'd never thought of all that," she finally said. She looked up at Lua. "How'd you learn so much about the business end of the music industry?"
"Listening to Min-jun's show on the radio," Lua said. Min-jun, Lua's boyfriend, was a radio engineer and personality on the morning show at one of the local stations. "The morning show covers all the show biz gossip, a lot of which is show biz business gossip. He's got to understand situations so he can talk about them without sounding stupid, so he talks to me about them to make sure he understands."
"I wish you could talk to Min-jun right now and see what he thinks about this," Sei said.
Lua looked at the time on her phone. "It's 3 o'clock already," she said. "He's probably up getting ready for today's show. All we have to do is wait a couple of hours and we can hear him."
Sei shuddered. "I'm not sure I want to do that," she said. "I mean, I know Min-jun's a good guy and he'll be on our side, but will the radio station let him be a good guy and be on our side on the air? There could be a company line he has to follow."
Lua shook her head. "I don't think so. Min-jun has talked a lot before about the importance of a free press, and he said one of the things he liked about this station was that the financial part was pretty much walled off from the on-air part."
"Well, that sounds hopeful," Sei agreed. "I just wish all this was over so we'd know what's going to happen."
Lua drank the last of her tea and got up to put her mug in the sink. "Things will start happening soon enough," she said. "Twelve hours from now you might wish you were back in the kitchen with me, drinking tea and not knowing what's going on in the outside world."
Sei nodded. "You're probably right," she said. "It's just the uncertainty and the waiting that's killing me."
"Well, finish your tea and try to get some sleep," Lua said. "Hopefully we'll have some good news in the morning."
"I wish I could have some confidence in that," Sei thought as she sipped her tea. "The morning's just as likely to bring more bad news." She finished read of her tea. "Staying awake won't make the news any better," she thought. "I'd better follow Lua's example and try to get some sleep."