Part Three: Turbulence (Young West x Reader)
Genre: angst x mistakes
Warning: filler x our hearts
Part One / Part Two
Your shoulders felt heavy, the air in your lungs passing through your lips with a stagger as your eyes met his.
Why was he here? Why was he sitting in AOMG’s conference room of all places?
‘What’s going on?’ you asked Soohyuk shakily, holding on to the door frame for support as the people in the room stood to greet you with bows.
It was meant to be an emergency meeting about the ‘scandal’ and finding solutions to the issue, yet all you seemed to see since arriving was one problem piling onto another, all beginning with Young and ending with Woo.
‘Why is he here?’ you asked no one in particular, tearing your gaze away from Youngwoo who looked just as startled as you, and letting them settle on Pumkin and Naeun from the AOMG PR team.
Soohyuk winced at your tone, pulling out a seat for you to sit on; it was clear that he wasn’t used to his newly appointed CEO position. Everything about his posture screamed that he was intimidated, though that could have been because of the death stare you were currently giving him.
‘We’re here to discuss the articles,’ Naeun reminds the room, cutting through the thick tension while you refused to give Youngwoo another glance. Even his manager suffered the same fate because as far as you were concerned, birds of a feather all flock together.
Naeun slapped a folder in front of you to which you opened, cringing internally at the bold article sitting at the top, one of many which had come after Elle’s magazine release five days ago.
You’d interviewed with Elle, discussing the showcase last month and experiencing your first real fifteen minutes of fame. Naturally, due to your nerves, you’d strayed from the answers you’d rehearsed beforehand, revealing that your motivation for success had come from heartbreak.
You’d given them enough details to know what the last two years of blood sweat and tears meant to you, but nothing vital enough to know who the ex-boyfriend was that had made you so determined.
You’d assumed that it was safe for you to say it. Who could have possibly have known you were talking about Youngwoo? No one could have – not in a million years you’d thought – and it was that exact assumption that had landed you in this mess.
I mean, how were you to know that MKIT had also been invited to feature in the same magazine? A feature piece that could be found on page 93, where Youngwoo admitted that despite his success in Seoul, he felt as if he’d left his heart back in L.A.
It was an unpredictable and cruel coincidence. It didn’t take long for readers to connect the dots, and less than 24 hours after the release, you’d found your name being blasted all over gossip-sites and articles throughout the nation:
‘The Fairy-Tale Twist: Unhappy Ending between AOMG’ Designer and MKIT Artist.’
‘Heartbreak in L.A. Salvation in Seoul.’
‘MKIT Rain Tears: Following Young West to the Far East.’
‘One-way Ticket to Heartbreak.’
You had to admit, they’d gotten creative with a few of the titles. You could see the humour in it, despite the fact that you’d spent literal years trying – and failing – to get over Youngwoo.
How were you meant to move on from someone who abandoned you? Every relationship after him had ended practically as soon as they started thanks to your newly-developed lack of trust. He’d given you daddy issues, minus the father-figure part, and you’d never gotten closure.
Soohyuk and Naeun were deep in conversation with the table, every so often mentioning ways of how to rectify the situation and regain some of the lost support that had been a result of the gossip, though it was nothing that kept you interested long enough for your thoughts to disappear.
While you were so busy overthinking, you hadn’t heard a word that was being discussed across the table. When you weren’t busy analysing the mess you were in, you were trying to focus on anything but Youngwoo, whose eyes you could feel boring into your skin.
You sat there for over an hour, nodding your head when the table looked at you as if asking for your approval, but otherwise paying no attention at all. Youngwoo was no different. You hadn’t even heard him speak—though you didn’t know if that was because he had been silent the whole time, or because you were so deep in thought that not even his octave that haunted your dreams, could pull you out of the trance.
You were staring down at the file when you felt Soohyuk’s hand gently pat your shoulder, drawing your attention to him as you finally zoned back into the conversation while he smiled down at you proudly as if you were a junkie who’d just agreed to go to rehab; ‘Okay, so it’s settled seeing as all parties are in agreeance. We’ll release an official statement this afternoon announcing an upcoming reconciliation project between Young West and Y/N.’
You heart stopped as you looked up at Soohyuk with shock; surely you had heard him wrong. You were meant to whisper it, though it came out as more of a growl, ‘What the fuck did you just say?’
As Soohyuk repeated their ‘solution’, you couldn’t help but feel ill, knowing that it was your fault that you were going to be stuck collaborating with Youngwoo for the next few weeks.
Unlike earlier where your brain was a muddle of thoughts and worries, the only thought now running through your head was a patronizing, you should have paid attention.
Part Four? foR sURe
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