Onyx: Truth

by J. S. Lee

  The second we stepped outside, we were surrounded – but this time by press. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure what nationality they were, but there were some Korean reporters in there. Whatever was happening seemed to have happened while we were in the air. How had they gotten there so fast?

  I was following up at the rear, and even if I could have asked, I wouldn’t have, but I could see the confused and hurt looks the members were sharing with each other. I was on my phone, searching the internet, trying not to walk into anyone with my luggage cart.

  That was a mistake. I should have left my phone in my pocket or paid more attention to the fans around us. Despite security accompanying us, a few fans charged towards us. My phone went flying, right under the wheel of my cart. I only just had a chance to pick it up. The screen was cracked. I thrust the phone back into my pocket, trying hard to keep the cursing in my head, and kept up with the others.

  Sungmin ushered us into a bus. We’d been given a full-sized coach rather than a minibus. With Onyx safely on board, keeping away from the windows, I helped the others stow our cases underneath, trying to ignore the constant camera flashes, but equally, trying to work out what questions they were shouting at us.

  It was something about Oh Bohyun?

  On the bus, expressions were mixed, ranging from terrified (CX), to heartbroken (Xiao), to furious (Youngbin). Somewhere in the middle with betrayed were MinMin, Jiwon and JongB.

  I took a seat, keeping to the aisle, and pulled my phone back out, trying to turn it on. My initial assessment had been an understatement – the thing was shattered.

  Oh Bohyun. That was as much as I’d established. Something had happened with him? To him?

  Whatever it was, it must have been bad because shitty as things had been in Shanghai, it hadn’t affected the whole of Onyx like that. For some reason, no one was speaking about it though.

  The journey from the airport to the hotel felt like it took much longer than it should have done. Although the driver had put an Indonesian radio station on, there was no conversation. Even the stylist and the makeup artist, who were gossip queens, were silent.

  The hotel was as beautiful as the one in Thailand. As soon as we checked in, Sungmin announced that he needed to speak to all of Onyx, and Onyx only. Taking the hint, I went up to my room. My gut was telling me that whatever had been announced in the news, I wasn’t going to like it. Unfortunately, I had a deadline on the photographs and I knew that if I looked now, it wouldn’t get met.

  I grabbed a quick shower, changing into a pair of shorts to match the beautiful weather, and sat on my balcony with my laptop, purposely not turning my Wi-Fi on.

  It was late afternoon when I finished and reconnected to the internet. After uploading them to Atlantis’ media center, it was time to focus on the other matter.

  I went to my trusty K-Pop blog sites. Onyx were all over them, and it wasn’t good.

  The cause of the problem was their former member, Oh Bohyun. Bohyun, I was reminded, was his stage name. He was Chinese, born in Beijing, and called Zhen Ming.

  That was not the cause of distress.

  Zhen Ming was now a member of the Chinese part of Atlantis Entertainment, where he was about to debut in China as a solo artist, using his real name.

  That was where the problem was starting.

  According to the statement Atlantis had released a while ago, Ming had decided that being an idol wasn’t what he wanted and was returning home to Beijing. Now he was in Shanghai – and had been at the same time as Onyx. Once he had been spotted and harassed by fans for abandoning the group, he had blurted out that the reason was because Onyx had been bullying him.

  I slumped back in my chair, staring at the article, not believing it. Jiwon and Youngbin had tough exteriors, but bullying? Any of them? I didn’t buy that for a moment.

  My instinct was to want to phone Holly, but then I remembered that my phone was dead. That had been next on my list to do anyway.

  I glowered at the screen, but the story didn’t change. Fuming, I slammed the lid shut. Bullying? I opened the laptop back up and found another site. This one was naming Youngbin as the source of the problem.

  I slammed the lid shut again. The guy was intense, but all he wanted was the best for Onyx and their Black Gems. He loved his group as much as he loved his fandom. This was bullshit.

  I had no way of getting in touch with them as my phone was dead, but none had come knocking on my door. I assumed Sungmin had put them on lockdown. As the only thing I had to contact any of them was Sungmin’s email (apparently, I hadn’t synced my phone properly for it to transfer the contacts to my cloud), I dropped him an email. I quickly explained that I needed to get a replacement phone, but I would be back soon and would check in later to see what the plans were.

  After covering my pale skin in sun lotion, I left my room. I’d done a search and discovered there was an Apple store quite close by. I had a few days before we would be back in the States, so if it wouldn’t work, I would wait, but the exchange rate was also working in my favor.

  제 18 장

  Watch Out

  I lucked out and bought an iPhone. I was in the lobby when I spotted a familiar face walk past: Youngbin. I wasn’t going to say anything, seeing as he hadn’t seen me, but I caught the stricken expression on his face. I hurried after him.

  I almost lost him, then saw him out by the pool, nursing a glass of what looked like whiskey. I sat down a little way from him, watching him as I contemplated going over. It was close to sunset and there was more light coming from the fairy lights which wrapped around the palm trees than there was from the sky. Aside from us two, the pool area was deserted. He’d come down here to be alone.

  I got up to leave, and then caught him rubbing at his eye. He wasn’t… crying… was he?

  It was hard to tell in the light, so I took a couple of steps towards him, trying to be like a ninja. I failed. He looked up, saw me, quickly looked away while wiping at his eyes, and then looked at me again.

  Yeah, he had been crying.

  “I saw you out here and I wanted to check everything was alright?” I told him. “The airport wasn’t pleasant this morning.”

  He let out a sound that was somewhere between a scoff and a snort.

  I gave him an awkward smile. “Clearly you wanted to be alone.”

  I started to turn, but his words stopped me. “I probably shouldn’t be talking to you.”

  I turned back. “OK?”

  He picked up the phone which had been lying on the table in front of him and tapped at the screen. Finding what he was looking for, he held it out to me. Cautiously, like I was approaching a crouching tiger, I moved over, taking the device from his hand.

  It was the article I had been reading before, only written in Hangeul as it had come from a Korean site. “I don’t think you’re likely to start bullying me,” I told him. “I also don’t think you were bullying any of Onyx.”

  “That’s not what you said.”

  I stared at him in confusion. “I never said that to anyone,” I said slowly.

  “Not in those words,” he shrugged.

  “Youngbin, I’ve never said that or anything like it,” I said carefully. I was beyond confused as to why he was saying this. The only people I had spoken to in the last ten days were his own group and half of his management team.

  “That’s not what the article says.”

  I dropped my gaze back to the phone, scrolling down the webpage. His words made no sense to me and I was questioning my Korean comprehension skills. My reading skills were certainly not up to scratch. I quickly did a search again, seeking out an English equivalent. I found a later article to one of the ones I had read earlier.

  CX (Onyx) joins former member, Bohyun, in bullying claims. I pulled it open, sinking into the seat at the table opposite Youngbin as I read it. The article had two pictures of CX and I at the airport in Shanghai, which seemed like a lifetime ago.

  In the first, we were at t
he gate, alone. In the second, we were eating noodles. Despite the headline, with those pictures, my mind instantly went to a dating scandal. I was even more perplexed when I read the article and it was talking about a “witness” who had heard the two of us talking.

  “Youngbin hates me. All he has done is yell at me.”

  “I’m not an idol, but, yes.”

  I looked at the words, trying to recall the conversation. To the best of my recollection, yes, that was what had been said. I put the phone on the table feeling sick to my stomach. “Youngbin, I have no idea who heard that, and who spoke to the news site about it, but that was taken completely out of context.”

  “You mean CX wasn’t feeling unwanted and that we were pushing him out?” His dark eyes were watching me, but I saw no anger there. All I saw was hurt.

  I sucked in a deep breath. “This was Shanghai where ‘fans’ had turned on him and spent a concert booing him. He felt like his presence there was detrimental to the group and he wanted to leave. And yes, part of that was because he had been finding the rehearsals tough, but I was explaining to him that you just wanted what was best for him, for the group, and the fans.” I pointed at the phone. “If whoever had reported that had included the next sentence, it wouldn’t sound half as horrific as it does.”

  Youngbin stared at me. Once more he had a hurt expression. He sagged back into his chair, glancing at the pool. “CX said the same thing.”

  “Of course he would, because it’s the truth,” I agreed. Youngbin refused to look at me. “You thought we would lie to you?”

  There was a single shoulder raise, but his gaze remained locked on the almost still turquoise waters of the pool. “Bohyun did.”

  “Lie to you, or lie in general?” I asked, carefully.

  Youngbin finally looked back at me, distraught. “Kate, we’re guys. We mock each other. We tease each other. We wind each other up.” He shook his head. “But it’s all lighthearted. We know each other enough… well… apart from CX we do… but we never picked on either of them. If anything, Bohyun was the one who annoyed everyone. He’d take things too far all the time. Yes, I did yell at him, but it was only ever because he upset another member. I didn’t do it just to be a dick.” He looked at me, imploringly. “He was my friend.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, quietly.

  He looked like he was going to cry again until he made that half-scoff-half-snort sound. “That’s not even why he left Onyx.” He picked up his glass, stared at the amber liquid, then he swallowed what was left, pulling a face as he put the glass on the table.

  No sooner had he set it down, he picked it up again. “I need another.” Youngbin stood up, the chair squeaking across the tiled floor. I watched as he strode across the empty patio area and disappeared inside. For half a moment, I thought I had really upset him and he had gone, but I still had his phone, which meant he was coming back?

  He did, carrying a bottle of bourbon and two glasses. Wordlessly, he poured the liquid into both glasses and then pushed one in my direction. I wasn’t a whiskey or a bourbon drinker. Beer or tequila were my thing, but right now, bourbon was acceptable.

  The silence between us was awkward, but I wasn’t sure what to say. I wanted to ask about Bohyun and why he left, but I also didn’t think it was appropriate. That information was need-to-know, and I clearly didn’t need to know otherwise someone would have brought it up long before now.

  I’d also inadvertently, and completely unintentionally, been quoted in a global news story where I’d confirmed Youngbin hated another member of his group. One who was also misquoted as saying Youngbin was a bully. That was why Youngbin had the bourbon to start with.

  In short, if he hadn’t have poured me a drink, I would have made sure he’d gotten his phone back and then high-tailed it out of there. Now I was confused, stuck drinking alcohol I didn’t care for, and had no idea what to say to make this any less awkward.

  “All I want is what’s best for them, and to protect them as much as I can,” Youngbin suddenly announced. His attention was on the condensation on the bottle, chasing a drop of water down the side. “I know I can be tough, but you need to be to survive in this industry. Eyes are always on us, judging us. We’re not allowed to make mistakes because the moment we do, it’s all over SNS.”

  “I don’t think that’s malicious though,” I told him. “I mean, I’ve seen videos and pictures like that and fans are either joking if it’s appropriate, and when it’s not, they’re the first ones to say it’s caused by you all working too hard and not getting enough rest, or the conditions weren’t favorable. Your fans adore you.”

  “It’s not the fans that are the problem,” Youngbin disagreed. He swallowed what was in his glass before pouring himself another. “It’s everyone else. The guys do really well, but every once in a while, a really brutal comment gets through and all the good ones are cancelled out. That, and whatever was cause for the comment – that’s what sticks with you and keeps you up at night.”

  “People need to learn that the basic rule in life is ‘Don’t be a dick’, and if they can’t do that, they need to just keep their mouths closed.”

  Youngbin nodded, morosely. “Easier said than done when you can hide anonymously behind your screen.”

  “The people at the airport weren’t hiding behind a screen,” I pointed out. “The conversation CX and I had – sorry, again – hadn’t even been known. Being tough doesn’t make you a bully. Those people jumped to conclusions.”

  “That’s not their fault, and I can’t blame them for that,” Youngbin disagreed.

  I set my glass down to reposition myself in my seat. “Bullshit.”

  “No,” Youngbin insisted. “You have seen how we are first hand. They have seen what has been for a limited, edited, length of time on various variety shows and us going live on SNS. When we first debuted Bohyun and Jiwon hated each other. Jiwon is from Busan and he has a very different accent to us. Bohyun was from China and learning Korean. They used to argue all the time because Jiwon wouldn’t drop his local terms to help Bohyun, and Bohyun would get so pissed off because he thought Jiwon was making it intentionally difficult to understand him.”

  “Really?” I’d noticed that Jiwon had a much thicker accent than the others, and I’d occasionally not caught what he’d said, but I didn’t think he was that bad.

  “Jiwon can be a dick when he wants to be. We all can, but Jiwon and Bohyun constantly brought out the worst in each other. However,” Youngbin shrugged. “You watch any show we were ever on, and you would never tell.”

  “It sounds more like siblings winding each other up,” I said, slowly. I’d never watched any of their shows; just their music videos. I’d never picked up on anything in them, although, by all accounts, I wouldn’t have.”

  “It is. We debuted two and a half years ago. Before that, I’d trained with them for two years, but Jiwon and Bohyun had been training with Xiao and MinMin for almost four years.” At my confusion, he sighed. “I was in another group at another company. Not long after I joined, Bohyun and Jiwon got in a huge argument over toothbrushes of all things. MinMin was the one to tell me what had happened previously.” He took another long sip of his drink. “The thing is, even when we argued, we never went to bed without talking it out as a group. We were – we are – family.”

  “Then why would Bohyun say you were bullying him?” I asked.

  Youngbin fixed me a pointed look. “He didn’t. You did.” As my cheeks flamed, he shook his head. “Or rather, someone took something you said and put their interpretation on it. The point is, Bohyun never named anyone specifically, people jumped to that conclusion.”

  “But why would he say that at all?”

  Youngbin didn’t answer at first, instead staring at the bourbon in his glass, swirling it around. “That right there is the billion won question.”

  “I really am sorry, Youngbin,” I said, softly. All I had wanted to do was make CX feel better and everything had been blown u
p out of proportion and out of context.

  “It’s done now,” he said, swallowing the rest of his bourbon.

  I stared at my own, barely touched drink, and chewed at the inside of my cheek. There had to be something that we could do. “Can’t you make a statement to counteract his claims?” I suggested. “I’ll happily go on record and explain my comments.”

  Youngbin shook his head. “Atlantis are preparing a statement.”

  “Good,” I said. I set my glass on the table and folded my arms. “Maybe they can set the record straight and explain why he really left while they’re at it.”

  A bitter laugh escaped Youngbin. “Hardly. The real reason will cause a worse scandal than his lies.”

  “For you, or for him?” I asked, wondering what could possibly be worse than being accused of bullying.

  “For both of us. It’s mutually assured destruction.” When I gaped at him in horror, he reached for the bottle. Instead of pouring another glass, he drank straight from the bottle. “Bohyun had a secret relationship.”

  “That’s the secret which could destroy both of you?” I asked in disbelief. Dating? Really? I refused to believe Bohyun was the only one dating. I was dating three of Onyx for fuck’s sake. That was going to cause more of an issue. Besides, Bohyun had left Onyx anyway.

  Youngbin didn’t respond. He took another long mouthful and then stood. “I need to go.” He scooped up his things and disappeared, leaving me at the table by myself.

  I sank back, rubbing at my temples. Was dating really such an issue that a person who had left the group felt he had to lie? I wanted to ask someone, but the only person I could think of was Holly, and judging from Youngbin’s admission, I didn’t think I was supposed to know that. Asking her would only let her know he had said something and I didn’t want him getting in more trouble because of my stupid mouth.

  This whole thing was my fault.

  I picked up my bag, abandoned the drink, and made my way back to my room. There had only been one message from Sungmin to say that everyone was going to get room service tonight, rather than eat together.