I took to the company halls like a dog for its master, by that I mean: I knew where exactly to go when it was Abby's daily exit. The rumors I had put out were still out there, and there wasn’t any way anybody could disprove them, but maybe I cheered her up by taking her to the river that day.

I waited for some time. But she didn't show up. Did she plan to do nothing today?

“So is this where you always sneak out to?” I stayed still. At this point, I could recognize Leslie's voice from a mile away, but I acted like I couldn’t hear her. “Hey.” She put her hand on my shoulder.

“Oh hey Leslie, I’m sorry were you talking to me?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, I just happened to need a breather right now, I don’t really go here often.” She would ruin this for me, I can’t let her know.

“Whatever, come on, we have something to talk to you about.”

Huh? What? No. Was she going to fire me? “Okay… let's go.” I followed her to a conference room, one of many.

On one of the chairs sat my manager, Alex.

“Congratulations! Jake, you are now an official member of the KDC Family! The previous assistant had a change of heart and decided to stay with her baby and Leslie personally asked me to promote you to full-time. And I mean…has it been two weeks? That's so fast!”

I looked at Leslie. She had a proud look on her face as if I wanted this.

“Now,” He continued “normally you wouldn’t be picking what shows your artist would get into, but…” he glanced at Leslie

“I feel like you understand me so well. I’ve been doing a lot of roles that haven't helped me at all. We need some new set of eyes, someone like you who's so passionate.” She slapped my back. “Congratulations!”

“T-thank you.” I was stunned. Would this mean less time with Abby and more with Leslie? I made a huge mistake.

“And…as a gift,” My manager spoke slowly, anticipation in his voice. “We’ll give you today off~!”

“Ah, thank you.”

The manager walked out with a smile, leaving me and Leslie alone. She had a big grin on her face. “So? Didn’t expect it did you?”

“No, I didn’t. Thank you." I mustered my nicest voice.

“It's nothing big, you know you deserve it. You and I can work hard together to go to the top. Just make sure to give me good scripts, and the type of water I prefer, and we will be fine.”

“Of course!”

Leslie left and I stared out to space. This was not what I wanted but at least this way I could be less worried about being fired. 

But it didn’t matter, today I had to talk to Abby!

I felt my flip phone buzz. Ah. Another distraction. ‘What?! Do you think I won’t tell Abby! How rude do you think you can be until I finally go tell Abby?!’

‘I’m sorry Emily I was just away for a couple days and couldn’t meet you, I’m sorry if I offended you.’ It took her seconds to respond back.

‘Sorry for blowing up like that. I just thought you were ignoring me! Listen, it's urgent, meet me up in the barf room in 20 minutes.’

It can’t be that important. Abby needs my attention right now more than anything, I need to see her. ‘Is it really? I’m actually very busy right now.’

‘If you don’t come right now I will personally make sure that Abby hates you.’

Sigh. What is this shit?

I waited 20 minutes then got out of the conference room and walked 2 minutes to music room #4. I opened the door but stood outside. “What's so important?”

“Come in and close the door!” Emily lazily laid on the couch. I walked in. This time she looked me straight in the eyes when talking. “I need you to talk to someone for me.”

“Huh?”

“You see I’ve been talking to this guy-“

“Hold it. I don’t know if you knew this but I actually just got promoted today.”

“Congratulations!”

“Yes, thank you. But, that means that I need to spend more time working.” and trying to get with Abby. “I’m sorry, I can’t really be helping you.”

“H-ha. F-funny joke! But you do realize how under my grip you are! Do you t-think Abby will ever love you if she finds out how creepy you are!”

“I think she already knows. So, it really doesn’t matter. She seemed not to mind.”

“Really?”

“Yea.”

She got on her knees and grabbed my legs. “Please, please help me. I can’t do it by myself! I really, really like this guy and none of my group members can find out! You’re the only one I can use for something like this!”

“Tough luck!” I pushed her back to the couch. “I haven’t seen Abby in 3 days! I need to secretly watch her every morning otherwise I might just go insane! It's the only thing keeping me going! I can’t be spending time trying to get your little romance thing up and running!” Ah, shit. Did I say that….

“That's great! We can help each other! What if I helped you with Abby and you helped me with this guy! I can’t talk to him and you want to talk with Abby. We can help each other.”

Once in a blue moon, I get hit by lightning. A passing thought turns into a fully fleshed-out plan in seconds. “Yes. We…can do that.” I put my finger to my chin as the gears in my head started to move.

“Great! So I just need you to meet up with this idol and pass him this note, he works on the other side of the building so it shouldn’t be that hard to find him.” She gave me a note. “Make sure to not lose it OR read it.”

There's another side to the building? “Okay. And you’ll do anything I say to help me with Abby?”

“Y-yes.” That didn’t sound very confident, but it wasn’t like I would ask her to do something crazy. It was all very simple stuff that I needed her to do.

I left music room #4 after a deep and thorough explanation from Emily on how to get from there to ‘the other side' of the building.

It was strange to be on this side. I had always thought it would be the same, but the security was more intense, I had to be scanned before I entered, warned not to do anything, and walk past several beefy security guards who all stared at me with unchanging eyes.

When I arrived where Emily had hastily sketched on a piece of paper I saw a big door with the words ‘U&ME’. Kinda strange, but whatever. I opened the door only to be quickly ambushed by a female manager. “Excuse me! What are you doing here?! Who are you?! What do you want?!”

“I-I was just coming in to see if anybody here could help me find a drama? I work for Leslie.”

“Hmmm.” She stared at me up and down. “I do know of a Leslie that works in the company, ok, you’re good to go in. But keep it short. They have to relax to be in their top shape!”

I walked in. The door promptly shut behind me. There was a long hallway in between the first door and a second, much smaller, door. I felt eyes dig into the back of my head as I walked to the second door.

When I entered the smaller door there was a group of five guys some standing, some sitting, some lounging, in a huge area. Music played in the background and I could hear side conversation on what the best type of Pokemon was. “Hey, guys,” I said. “my name is Jake, and I work as Leslie's assistant. I just wanted to let you guys know that if you are in any tv shows, or get any scripts for a tv show, and you feel like Leslie is a good fit then contact me and I will get it to her!”

They nodded there heads, I don't know if it was to me or the music. One of them spoke, he must have been the leader of the group, “We don’t have anything but we will be sure to share, it doesn’t hurt to help.”

“Yes! Thank you! And…is there a…Daniel? In the group.” I looked around, a skinny guy with a crew cut raised his hand. Well, I thought he was ugly, but who am I to judge another person's love. I walked up to him and handed him the paper that Emily gave me.

He took the paper, read it, then he gave a smirk. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

One of the guys jokingly ran up and snatched the paper “What is this? Highschool?” He opened up the paper and quickly skimmed it. Daniel didn’t really seem to care so I didn’t know why he was being so hasty. “What? Emily? Don’t you think it's a little too easy?” he gave the paper back to Daniel.

“What?” Daniel said. “She’s cute.”

The jokester gave a tired look. “Yea but she's nice to every guy she meets, I mean look at this poor guy.” I don’t know why he pointed at me. “She’s obviously using him because he’s in love with her.” He suddenly turned to me. “I know that it could seem like she's into you and that it's fun to run these games for celebrities, but trust me, most of the time these idols are just not worth it. Go for a normal girl.”

Daniel rolled his eyes, “Don’t listen to him, he just got rejected by some girl group member..”

“No problem, and to clear the record.” I couldn’t let this dating thing, or ‘he's interested in Emily’ thing pass. “I am not interested in Emily at all and am actually doing this as a favor.”

The jokester shot me a look of pity. “Of course, I’m sorry for assuming. You know, it's just that, if you were to have that in your mind you should realize that it's better to save yourself the agony of trying to get with a girl group idol. It never works out.”

“Thank you, anyway it was fun meeting you guys.”

“Ah wait.” Daniel suddenly said. Pulling out a pencil from out of nowhere he quickly scribbled something on the paper and gave it back to me. “Bring this back to her.”

What? Am I a courier? “Sure.” I grabbed the paper and left.

The manager, or whoever she was, kept her eyes on me as I walked through the hallways. Even when I was out of sight I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was looking at me. What a creepy lady.