There were only two options that Rachel saw for herself before coming to talk to Aiden.
Either she was going to stay competitive with Aiden and keep trying to force out a rivalry that Aiden didn't want to such an extent. Or she could be better and try to focus more on herself.
The first option was going to drag her to a path of no return and Rachel knew that she was going to be lonely as time went on.
She didn't want that.
That's why, reconciling with Aiden was the only one for her. Although he felt that Rachel was going against her personality, she had already thought it out.
'She has really grown. Something must have happened.'
Aiden thought in his mind, seeing her like this.
Humans won't really think so deeply about themselves until something big has happened to them. He didn't know that Rachel had started having these thoughts after finding herself lonely on the stage.
But he has a hunch.
"You don't have to say sorry. I'm happy that you seem to be growing as a person. It's going to—"
As he was talking, he suddenly noticed something strange. A strange golden light appeared around Rachel. It was just a spark but he noticed it.
Realising what it might be, he opened up his system and saw that Rachel had advanced in her skill level.
___
[Rachel Rose] [28]
[Singing level: Intermediate Grade 10]
[Special skill: High notes]
___
She was only in Intermediate Grade 9 when she had come to talk to him but now she had levelled up. He was again reminded of Rachel's extraordinary talent.
The first time he had seen her, she was in Intermediate Grade 2. In a few years, she had almost reached the advanced level.
That was extraordinary but it made sense for someone like her.
'I guess things are more mental for her right at this level.'
He thought in his mind and saw that Rachel was looking at him weirdly.
"Why are you suddenly staring at me? Now that I think about it, you do that a lot."
"It's nothing." Aiden said, shrugging his shoulders.
"Sure. Although I'm not gonna act like an enemy around you, I will still say that you have a way of making me uncomfortable by staring. It's almost like you staring at my soul."
Aiden wanted to say that it was actually really like that but he refrained himself.
He tried to move on in the conversation now that everything looked fine between them but suddenly, he got a call.
He saw that it was Wade and picked it up.
"Wade, what happened?"
"Ah, go look at the news. Like just open up your phone and see the front page of any entertainment portal."
Hearing that, Aiden was silent for a second, wondering what had happened. His face went blank for a second and even Rachel noticed.
"Did I get into some scandal I have no idea about?" He asked, thinking if he had done something in recent time. But there was nothing.
If he was being honest, his life had been like an NPC these past months. Very carefree like he was just one of the million people on the street.
"No, you didn't. Just look it up."
Wade said and cut the call. Aiden quickly opened up an entertaining portal on his phone and just the first news article was enough for him to know what was going on.
Reading it, he had a shocked expression on his face.
'Why did this happen? I didn't even do anything this time.'
Aiden thought in his mind. Normally, stuff like this would only happen after he had made some sort of a deal to clear out his path but this time, that hadn't happened.
It happened randomly. How strange!
"What happened? Why did you have a shocked face?"
Rachel asked, unable to hold off her curiosity.
"See this."
Aiden showed her the phone and after seeing her, she was way more shocked than Aiden. Her eyes went wide and her expression was like she had caught her future husband in bed with another man.
"Is it real?" She looked at Aiden.
"I mean they did provide proof. These things are easy to verify anyway."
On the screen, there was a news article about Soul and it wasn't a good one.
<Breaking news! Explicit chats of members of the Korean boy band Soul got leaked with various girls. In the chats, there are photos of them that they sent to the girls they were talking to. Korean industry has been in frenzy with this news, especially because a few of the girls seem to be underaged.>
Rachel wasn't able to believe it but the news was spreading fast. There was no way to ignore it.
She looked at Aiden and sighed.
"I will leave. I need to see this mess for myself. Though, I guess you are going to win again."
She clicked her tongue and Aiden could only show a helpless smile.
"Good luck."
She left after that and Aiden just wondered why this had happened while finishing his coffee.
***
Online, the news of K-pop boy band Soul and their explicit chats have spread all around. A lot of Hollywood entertainment news portals were excited to publish the news as most of them have gotten the tip that the chats were genuine.
They have not gotten any response from Soul's agency either.
If it wasn't genuine, then they would have said something, meaning that there was truth in the matter.
Although a celebrity talking to a minor like this wasn't new in Hollywood and some people would even ignore it after a few days, the situation was extremely different in Korea.
The society was more conservative and the film industry was extremely toxic where agencies would even tell their stars to not date or maintain a facade to sell a character.
They need to do that so the K-pop idols could be the boyfriend of the fans and not one girl.
It was a rule that every agency follows and in the past, an idol dating has impacted their career. This was much worse than that and there was no comparison.
Even the law could get into it as the chats were with minors, so there was a lot of trouble awaiting the K-pop band.
Tom was right. If someone was oppressed a lot, they would try to break out. Though, even he hadn't expected that he would find such things. When his sister had sent him those messages, he was shocked.
But it had made him feel a bit better about doing it.
At least Soul weren't all innocent. They were paedophiles.
Aside from this, Soul's whole fan group was in distress. At first, they tried to make it look like it was a conspiracy theory at first but the truth wasn't something they could hide for long.
Even they had to accept it.
When it had settled down, a lot of their fans had suddenly lost hope in them while others were awaiting a press release from their agency, hoping it was just fake news.
Still, the impact was mostly negative as Soul's Sparrow handle lost almost 200k followers in a single night. The same was with the streaming numbers that have suddenly slowed down.
The entire focus of the fan group was on keeping the song at the first place until now but now, they didn't really care about it. The scandal had taken their attention.
[Moaning Frodo: Man, I was extremely confused when I woke up to the trends of #Horsey and #Explicit chats. It seems like the Soul members have nice kinks. They might be bastards but they are men of culture. I approve!]
[Gay Sparrow activist: It's extremely fun to see the meltdown from celebrity fans. They go around making it look like the celebrity is the next coming of Jesus but they end up like Satan's servant. No one can be good with all the money, power and attention.]
[Idle Stalker: No, it's all a big conspiracy theory. My oppa said he's a gentle lover. How can he have weird kinks?! Not like I'm complaining, I don't mind some play hehe. But no! He's innocent!]
[Bald Billionaire: Okay, my days of stanning K-pop groups are over. They are just like other Hollywood celebrities, just with a curated image. The last time, it was a female idol who was into pagan stuff, now this. I would rather take a celebrity going to gay orgies.]
[Young Fruit smiley: So, it looks like Aiden is going to win again in the streaming numbers. His numbers are going up and Soul is going down from all lists and getting into the top of newspaper headlines. I'm really feeling like Aiden is blessed or something. This always happens.]
[I take on 5 men: Either he's the son of a gangster or he's very well connected. Or just incredibly lucky. Can't really say but it's fun to know that he always. Well, aside from some failures.]
[Hollywood Insider: I hope he takes some break after this. I enjoy his movies but he looks tired these days and looks like he's just doing things instead of truly enjoying them.]
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