Things to Avoid 32
Things to Avoid Master List
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You have fifty-two voicemails.
Her phone echoed on speakerphone and she immediately turned it off. Eun-Sang had over a hundred text messages, three hundred emails, and now fifty-two voicemails. Hyo-Shin picked up her phone gingerly.
“New idea,” he suggested. “Young-Do goes through your phone, takes your messages, culls your emails, and deletes all your unimportant texts. He’s got great handwriting.”
“Not you?” She curled her toes over the edge of the edge of her chair. She hugged her knees tightly to her chest as Young-Do gaped at her phone. Myung-Soo tilted his head and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.
“I will lose my temper.” Hyo-Shin squeezed her hand. “I looked at some of the comments online last night after you fell asleep. Min-Ah had to talk me down. I know you’re worried about your kids and work, but I don’t think you need to look at them.”
“You don’t,” Myung-Soo said softly. “There is nothing inside your scandal you need to see, Manager Cha. People say hateful and cruel things about you and those you love. It is ignorance but it doesn’t hurt any less.”
Young-Do grimaced and put his hand on Myung-Soo’s shoulder. Eun-Sang suddenly realized why Hyo-Shin asked these two to stay to support them. She’d read some of those horrible articles before the scandal died down.
“Because your lives aren’t a scandal,” she whispered and swallowed. “They’re your lives.”
“Well said.” Myung-Soo smiled at her. His phone beeped at him. “I’m sorry, I can’t stay. I’ve got a meeting for a shoot in Incheon. I need to go home and change for it.”
Eun-Sang nodded and Young-Do looked momentarily sad when Myung-Soo stood and kissed the top of his head. “It’s just a meeting. I don’t leave for another few days. You’re about to do night shoots anyway.”
Young-Do muttered something cranky under his breath but Myung-Soo just laughed and tugged him up for another kiss. Eun-Sang looked away from the private display and started at her phone. They said goodbye to Myung-Soo and fell quiet.
“Was it bad?”
Her question made Young-Do’s expression tight. He picked up her phone and swiped his thumb over it. “His father nearly disowned him. We’re lucky his mother is very supportive of us. She’s the president of Victory Law. The things people say…they don’t bother me. My fans are good for the most part and Rachel really is the best president in the business. There were contract disputes for a few weeks. Without her, I wouldn’t have a career anymore. Now, the industry is used to it. Myung-Soo lost a few jobs. It was bad. It’s better now.”
“I remember that part.” It all happened last year. It felt so long ago. Eun-Sang looked over at Hyo-Shin. “She’ll do the same for you. We’re…very normal, considering.”
“One of my favorite things about us,” he lightly teased. Eun-Sang smiled slightly and her stomach started twisting again. She felt bolstered last night, and this morning back in bed with Hyo-Shin was lovely, but the reality of her situation weighed on her.
“Do you know if they found the videos of me as a trainee?” She bit her lip when it started to tremble. “There are some videos of me out there with…with my former manager. My former company claimed I was practicing a scene when it came out. I’m not.”
Hyo-Shin put his arm around her. He pulled her chair right up against his. “I saw it last night. President Yoo and Attorney Yoon are handling it. Eun-Sang, a lot of actresses are coming out in support of you. Most of them aren’t even in our company. People in the industry know that wasn’t rehearsal. He never should’ve spoken to you like that.”
She stiffened and squeezed her eyes shut. “I wish you hadn’t watched it. It’s embarrassing that I let him treat me that way.”
“You were sixteen. You had no way of stopping him,” Young-Do cut in and mortification flooded through her. She jerked up and looked at him. His expression was angry and his body tense. She flinched away and he winced. He made a visible effort to soften and put aside his anger. “I’m sorry. I saw Yang Da-Kyung’s talent director speak to trainees that way. It’s why I didn’t sign with her. Rachel is tough. She expects excellence. I’ve never heard her or any of you speak to us like that. Hyo-Shin wasn’t the only one Min-Ah and Kyung-Ho had to talk down last night.”
“Did everyone see it?” She had her answer in the way the two men looked at each other. Eun-Sang wished she’d run out of tears. She hated shaking. She hated feeling humiliated all over again. “How am I supposed to show my face at work tomorrow? I get that I’m not what his fans had in mind when they let themselves consider he had someone he loved but…there is no winning here. This is going to be in the news for weeks before they get bored ripping me apart and if I run away...I won’t have a job when I get back.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Young-Do said. “Rachel—“
Eun-Sang cut him off with a shake of her head. “Will take me off the short list. She’s been giving me vice president duties this last year. She’ll have to go with Ye-Sol, who is a good second choice, but she’s not me. I’ve wanted this ever since my first year as a manager. President Yoo either has to have her own heir or she will pass it off to one of us. If she has her own heir, then I will be one of the mentors.”
The two men looked at her with wide eyes and her face heated up. She tried to wipe the tears off of her cheeks. “Rachel has my undying loyalty after what she did for me. I believe in our company. I love our company because we aren’t like all the other talent agencies out there. I’m just…I’m not good at this.”
Pain contorted Hyo-Shin’s face. “Tell me the best way to support you. I’ll do anything you want. If it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.”
His blunt statement shocked her. Eun-Sang stared at him and that wonderful feeling, that beautiful feeling, the thing that started all of this, burned in her chest. She couldn’t walk away from him. Being with him was better than being alone. She’d never felt that way with any of her other boyfriends.
And she’d thought she was broken after the way Min-Ki left.
She wasn’t broken. She just hadn’t found someone worth keeping in her life.
“I don’t know yet,” she replied. The tears finally stopped swelling her eyes. “Let me take a shower and organize my thoughts.”
“Okay.” He kissed her forehead and she curled her fingers in his pajama bottoms for a few seconds before she stood and kissed his cheek. “We’ll go through your phone and email and organize everything for you. We’ve got plenty of food left over from last night, although all the gimbap is gone.”
“I can make you more,” Young-Do offered. “You’ve got all the stuff.”
Her shoulders relaxed and she went over to him. She gave him a loose hug and kissed his cheek. He awkwardly patted her back. “Thank you, Choi Young-Do. For everything. Especially the gimbap.”
“Of course, Manager Cha.” His voice squeaked a little bit and he had to clear his throat.
She smiled weakly at them both before going into the bathroom to shower. The hot water helped her relax as she methodically went through washing her hair, scrubbing at her face, and using a rough sponge to slough away the last day.
Eun-Sang took her time blow-drying her hair, putting on lotion, and splurged a bit of eye cream for her swollen eyes. She stared at herself in the mirror and wondered what decision she could make that would quell the turbulence inside her. She pulled her hair into a ponytail with shaking hands.
She’d survived one year of hell as a trainee under the worst management in the country. She worked hard as a trainee under Rachel. Unfortunately, the damage had been done, and she couldn’t debut despite how promising an actress she was shaped into. Eun-Sang never loved acting. Not the way she loved her current job and certainly…
Not the way she loved Lee Hyo-Shin.
Her decision didn’t halt any of the fear inside her. It was the right thing to do. If it wasn’t another of her kids caught in a scandal like this, she would encourage them to do this too. Tomorrow would be terrifying but…after that year, she knew she could survive anything and this time, the rewards were much, much sweeter.
She promised him she wouldn’t run away but more importantly, she didn’t want to.
Eun-Sang found a comfortable pair of pants and a nice shirt to wear even though she wasn’t leaving the apartment. She put on some mascara and eyeliner. She applied lip gloss for probably the first time in months. She liked the way she looked. It was time to stop pretending that Manager Cha and Eun-Sang were different people.
Hyo-Shin and Young-Do stood when she came back to the dining room table. She sat back down next to him and squeezed his hand as she looked over the notepad with all of her voicemails. They’d narrowed it down to ten. Ten was doable.
Then she looked up at Hyo-Shin with her best Manager Cha expression. “You can say whatever the hell you want on the record. You can answer any question. You can snarl at any insult. Tomorrow, I’m walking in the front doors of our headquarters, and I’m going to work.”
