Erina's Curse (ENGLISH VERSION)

Chapter 18.1

"Fifteen seconds before the break ends, be ready and stand by on five."

Five seconds after the production staff gave me the signal, I placed the strap of my acoustic guitar over my shoulders then breathe deeply to calm myself. 

I've been performing on different music award shows for almost a month now, but my heart seemed to not get the hang of it. Four weeks of sleepless nights and four weeks of tireless rehearsals. 

Tired would be an underestimation of what I feel right now. But a hint of excitement overpowers that tiredness because finally, tonight is the last award show that I would perform my new song after it came out. 

"With over 54 million 1st day streams on global Spotify, the lady who does not need any introduction," the female host announced as I lose my nerves while standing on the sidelines. 

"GreyArea's Main Vocalist, Erina Lee!" 

When the two hosts finished the introductions, I confidently walked towards the center of the stage with the guitar on my hands. I waited until the audience stopped cheering before starting my song. But as I strum the first chord, the dome erupted again. 

I finished performing and one of the staff lead me to one of the seats up front. I sat beside my bandmates because they also performed a while ago. 

After a series of performance, the awarding ceremony commences and when I received the 10th award for my solo, I still couldn't grasp that all of it was real. 

My smile and the shock were still the same as the first time I won. I felt overwhelmed and grateful. For the past two months, I've been the happiest. I have friends, I had my first ever solo and of course, I have Silas. He really is the highlight of my life. 

"Uhm…," I hesitated a bit because I couldn't contain my happiness anymore. The fans and the staff all just laughed and encouraged me to continue my thank you speech. 

"I…. I’m really thankful for all of you," I can’t help but laugh along with everyone because I seriously sound like a rookie because of the overwhelming feelings in my heart. "I know I've been repeating this for the past few weeks, but I really can't think of anything but to be thankful. This trophy bears only my name, but the real heroes here are you guys, thank you for your continuous support. I love you all."

The audience cheered then the production manager gave me his signal to start singing for the encore performance. I also pulled the girls on stage so that they can join me in singing. As we sing together, the audience cheered some more. It's not every day that you see GreyArea performing my solo song.

When the show ended, one of our assistants informed us to go straight to the company. We were all pretty tired, but we still don't have a choice. Raqi and Sassy already fell asleep as we enter the van. I tried sleeping too but my back seems to choose where it wants to be rested. I badly want to go home and rest now.

"What did they say about the agenda of the meeting?" 

I ask Kesha because she's the one who seemed to still have energy. The other three look like they would sleep on the first soft thing that they would see.

"I don't know. Maybe it’s about the comeback," she answered then yawned. I was wrong, huh? We’re all really tired. 

When we reached the conference room, I quickly opened the door. I was immediately startled when I heard the loud bang from the sound of the confetti. 

"Congratulations on your solo, Erina!"

The staff and my bandmates shouted. The four of them look like they run out of energy a while ago but now they are squeezing me so tightly with their warm hugs. Energy overload. 

"Wow, you didn’t know huh? Liars!" 

I raised my brows on Kesha, but she just laughed and hug me again. There are a lot of food on the long table and the room was filled with balloons. This looks like a birthday celebration rather than a simple dinner.

"Thank you, guys! I appreciate all your efforts. Please help yourself," I motioned them to eat then walked towards Sir Leo who was waiting with his arms spread wide for a hug.

"Finally! You can now sleep peacefully," he jokingly said then tap my head.

"My bed already misses me terribly, Sir."

I also miss Silas. These past few weeks we didn’t have the chance to meet. His three months training in the company ended a couple of weeks ago and their actual shooting for the drama already started. I can’t even reply to most of his text messages because right after my rehearsals I literally just sleep because I’m so out of energy to do anything else.

After talking to some staff, I excused myself. I walked towards the restroom to call someone. After two rings, he finally answered the call.

"I miss you," was his first greeting.

"I want to see you so bad already," I answered while pouting. 

"Sunday love. I can't wait to see you too."

Sunday is the only day in a week that we are both available. But sometimes we can’t even meet on Sundays especially now that he’s shooting already. The shooting location is far from the capital and it would be a hassle for him if he would travel that long just to see me for a couple of hours. He suggested that before, but I immediately declined. If I’m tired, I know that he is too. It’s not a joke being an artist.

Even though I really want to talk to him more, I forced myself to end the call because I can hear from his voice how he badly wanted to rest. The girls are almost finish eating so I urged them to finish quickly so we can all finally go home. We went home, clean ourselves then go straight to bed. We don’t even have the spare energy to talk for a bit.

The next few days were stressful, an edited image of me when I was younger got trending. The people were accusing me of plastic surgery and many fans were triggered so the online fan wars are really intense. The company immediately diffused the rumor by uploading my real childhood photos. We thought the issue would go down but the people who started the rumor are now targeting another artist. Even the girls are starting to be involved in the nonsense drama.

"Look at these edit of me," Kesha was pointing at her iPad pro while laughing.

We were in the common room and we’ve been talking about the plastic surgery issue for a while now.

"I mean, if they’re going to edit my face can’t they make it a little believable?”

I just laughed at what she said because the edited picture of her is really just pure joke. It’s absurd! Her nose is so big that it looked like it was pasted in the original photo. Geez, the person who did this don’t have any photoshop skills. What a pity.

I was startled when Kesha suddenly erupted in laughter. Leina, Raqi and I have been laughing for a while now. We were being noisy in short, but Raqi and Sassy were both unusually quiet. Maybe they’re hungry because the lunch is taking so long. 

"What’s that? Show me!"

I ask Kesha but she ignored me and instead sit next to Sassy. Sassy’s eyes immediately widen when she saw what was in Kesha’s iPad. She looks so shock that we immediately sat next to her because of curiosity.

"Sassy, they made you look like a pig what the hell," Leina jokingly exclaimed.

The picture was an obese version of Sassy. This looks like her but fat.  The editor of this is quite good because the picture looks real. If this wasn’t used to hurt someone, I would even complement him or her.

I glanced at Sassy and was startled when I saw that she was about to burst into tears. Oh no, maybe she’s really offended for real. Sassy is the visual of our group. When we debuted, she was immediately noticed by a lot of critics because of her natural beauty.

"Hey, just ignore it. Who would even believe that you would undergo in a plastic surgery?"

I said to console her but instead, she suddenly stood up then walked out. I was about to follow her, but Raqi stopped me and said that she would take care of it herself.

"What's her problem?"

Leina curiously asked then continued browsing the internet. I just shrugged my shoulders because I have no idea what just happened. Sassy's been acting weird since those supposedly 'scandal' arises. As for me? I don’t really care because I know that they’re just bullshits.

"And besides what's wrong with plastic surgery?" Leina asked again.

"Nothing. If it makes you confident and happy, why not right?"

I answered and Kesha seconded. I'm already contented with how I look that's why I don't need any surgery done but if I was born with a different face and I was not contented with my facial and bodily features then I wouldn't think twice to get one. It's my body after all.

While we were driving home, Sassy and Raqi are still quiet. But they’re answering when we throw them questions, so we just let it go. We had bulgogi and japchae for dinner. After taking a bath and changing into comfortable clothes, I stayed in the living room to wait for Silas. The girls fell asleep early and I might be tempted to sleep too, and I don’t want to have Silas wait for me when he comes here so I’ll just stay in the sofa.

Every Saturday night, he would pick me up to stay in his condo. Although these past few weeks we didn’t have enough time to actually go with our plans. Specially him because he’s always on call with their shooting. It's almost 10 pm so I decided to call him already. Most of the times, he comes at 9 pm so I was wondering why he’s still not here. When he didn't answer my 10th attempt to call him, I started to worry. 

I tried calling Dustin, but he said that they’re not together because as I’ve said, Silas is in the shooting location. But he told me that they will finish at 6pm. The travel time from there to the city is almost two hours so I expected him to be at least here at 9pm considering the traffic. 

I called him again but still to no vail. It's almost midnight and I’m so sleepy already and still, he’s not around. I texted him multiple times already but he’s not replying at all. I’m out of options already because I couldn’t call anyone in the shooting location because no one knows that we are together.

I don't know when or how but maybe because of all the stress and work; I fell asleep and just woke up by Sassy tapping my arm. I struggled to get up because my back is aching bad. I had my body curled that’s why it’s aching. 

"We have to go," she said not minding asking why I’m still here in the house when I should’ve been in Silas’ condo already.

Maybe she sensed that I didn’t want to talk about it. I don’t know what to feel, do I get mad at him for not minding calling or texting me or should I be worried?

I nod then kissed the four of them in the cheeks. Not a minute after, they're already gone, and I was again alone in the house. I was about to call him again, but a notification popped out on the screen. It's an email from one the brands that I’m endorsing. It's just to inform me about the packages coming my way and a reminder about the paid advertisements on i********:. 

The pictures and captions for that specific brand is already ready so I don’t have a problem with that. I just need to post them. I was about to minimize the app when a picture caught my eye. 

It was a picture of Silas, Suzy and another man I don't recognize. It was posted by a fan account and there’s even a caption about their shooting last night. It was immediately trending on all social media platforms.