Joonjae-Did You Blackmail Her?

'You really need to keep your temper under check,' I said to Taewon. We were at home; our schedule ended for the day. Luckily, we did not run into the TNT members again throughout the day.

'Yeah yeah, whatever,' Taewon dismissed my advice as he slumped on to the couch. Jan sat on the chair opposite him.

'You could have just ignored his jabs,' Jan said crossly. 'Or shut the door on his face. Why did you create such a fuss?'

Taewon shrugged. I knew it was useless to make sens of his actions so I shifted the topic to the other matter in hand.

'Did you know that Ms. Mia works with TNT?' I asked quietly.

'Oh yeah!' Jan quipped up. 'Is that why you asked us to pretend not to know her?'

Taewon sighed. 'Yes, I knew,' he conceded. 'She told me.'

That took me aback. Jan and I looked at each other in confusion. When did these two become close? As far as we knew, they hated each other.

'Did you blackmail her into revealing her work information?' I asked suspiciously.

'What?' Taewon exclaimed. 'No!'

'Did you spy on her?' Jan asked.

'Is that what you think?' Taewon was affronted.

'You must have tortured her then,' I concluded.

'I may be short tempered, but I'm not that bad!' Taewon protested. 'She told me herself.'

Jan and I looked at each other before bursting into laughter.

'There is no way she would say that she's working for TNT,' I snickered. 'Especially to you. I mean the girl hates you.'

'Yeah,' Jan agreed, wiping off tears from his eyes. 'The only ways she'll ever tell you that she works for TNT is either if you blackmail her or torture the information out of her.'

'I did not do any such thing!' Taewon said, indignantly. 'Just shut up and listen!'

Seeing his serious face, we stopped laughing. He narrated to us the whole incident about how Mia's kid, Deen, was left home alone again by the babysitter. He told us how he helped the child and the mother, feeling indebted to him, revealed that she is TNT's designer. By the time he finished, our mouths dropped in shock. Taewon actually did something nice for them?

Noticing our shocked expressions, he burst out 'I'm not a monster ya know! I just did what I thought was right.'

I went up to him and patted his head. 'You're growing up, leader,' I poked fun at him.

'Stop it,' he said irritably. But I could see he was suppressing a smile. Jan threw a pillow at us.

'I'm hungry,' he complained. 'Can we order pizza?'

'You're on a diet, idiot,' Taewon scolded him. 'Besides, it's time to take Mona on a walk and today is your turn.'

'But I'm too tired,' Jan moaned lazily. 'Joonjae, you take Mona for a walk today.'

He gave me his famous puppy dog expression. I sighed. 'Fine,' I surrendered. 'I'll take Mona out. You better feed this bottomless pit before he dies of hunger.'

Taewon groaned and got off the couch. He headed over to the refrigerator and began to rummage through the ingredients for dinner.

I turned around and whistled loudly. 'Here Mona,' I called out. She happily obliged and came downstairs, wagging her tail, ready to go out. Poor dog must get very restless being locked up in this large mansion all by herself.

'Let's go,' I instructed her after putting on her leash. 'See you two later,' I waved at the others.

'See ya,' Jan said. Taewon only gave a brief nod as he sorted through the vegetables he placed on the kitchen counter.

I hurried out of the house with Mona on tow. It was a warm, summer night. As I stepped out, I had an eerie feeling that I was being watched. Strange, I thought. Not many people lived around our area. Except for us and Ms. Mia's household, there were only a couple more houses with families in them. The rest were mainly daytime office buildings which are usually devoid of people by nighttime. I peered around but nothing stood out.

'Ahjusshi!'

I spun around to see a seven year old boy waving at me from the back alley. I smiled and waved back. He ran towards me.

'What are you doing here?' I asked him. 'Where's your mom?'

'She's right there,' Deen pointed at the back. Sure enough, his mother appeared from the alley. Mia stopped short only to see me standing with Deen.

'Hi,' I said in English.

'Oh hi!' she replied back in English. 'What are you doing out so late?'

'Taking Mona out for a walk,' I pointed at the Cane Corso.

'So this is the famous Mona?' Mia stooped low to pat the dog. Mona enjoyed the pampering and sniffed Mia's hand.

'Where are the other two?' Mia asked, still patting the dog.

'One is whining and the other is cooking,' I said drily. 'What are you two doing out so late?'

'We're going to see fireworks!' Deen exclaimed.

'The park nearby is about to send off some fireworks,' Mia explained. 'Deen has been insisting on seeing them for a while.'

'I'm heading that way too. Wanna go together?' I offered.

Mia hesitated. 'Are you sure? What if a paparazzi spots you?' she asked, unsure.

'Oh that reminds me,' I said. I picked up a rock from the road and flung it towards a garbage can in the distance. A loud 'Ow!' broke through the night. A portly figure emerged from behind the garbage bin.

'Mona, catch,' I ordered the dog in Korean. The portly figure was about to run but Mona was faster. She jumped on the man and tackled him under her weight. A large camera flung out of his hand and landed near our feet.

I picked it up and went through the pictures. The man took some photos of me and Ms. Mia. No doubt he was about to stir some scandal.

'Who is that?' Mia asked bewildered.

'A paparazzi no doubt,' I said grimly. 'Stay here. I'll handle him.'

I went towards the man, who was still struggling to get Mona off him. When he saw me approaching, he froze.

'J-j-joonjae sshi,' he sputtered.

'Mona, let go,' I ordered the dog. Immediately, she got off the man and strutted to my side. The man looked terrified. His bald head was sweating profusely. I held up the camera and asked, 'Do you want this?'

'Please return my camera to me,' he pleaded. 'It costed me an arm and leg to buy! I'll never reveal those pictures. I swear! I was just asked to tail you by my editor and-'

The rest of his words were interrupted by an ear deafening shatter as I slammed the camera on the ground with all my force.