“Mr. Roto Biaz, I - ”, I hurriedly tried to explain as soon as I saw Roto back at the mansion.

“No need. I heard it all already”

“Sorry?”

“Mr. Roto Biaz is a busy man. He heard you talking while we were driving back. The speakerphone was on”, Ema blurted coldly.

That sounds a bit creepy but ok. Probably not surprising anymore considering that Ema even broke into my house in the dead of the night and almost kidnapped me out of there.

“We gotta do some damage control”, Roto stated the obvious, but I guess somebody had to say it.

“Why don’t we just confront it directly, Mr. Roto Biaz?”, Ema suggested.

“How do you mean?”

“We can release a statement that Ms. Hina has absolutely no interest whatsoever in someone like Poos”

Roto and I both glared at her, for different reasons.

“Or we can claim Poos is gay?”, Ema shrugged and suggested another idea.

“Hey!”

“Actually that is an idea…” - Oh God, Roto. Don’t even consider it.

“With all due respect, it would just be weird as hell for the Biaz family to make a big fuss and make a press release that someone irrelevant like me is gay, which is not even true by the way”

“Of course we won’t be that untactful. But we could casually PLANT the truth that you are gay”, Roto seemed to be chasing a train of thought that I didn’t like.

“What ‘truth’ are you planting and how?!”

“You could be seen in public with your male lover?”, Roto’s starting to like the idea more. This is no good.

“Oh please - this is absurd”

“We can arrange one very quickly Mr. Biaz, a new male lover for Poos that is”

“Aw come on!”

“YOU brought all this mess!” - both Ema and I were starting to lose temper.

“:Yawn: what’s going on here everyone?”

Hina walked into the study rubbing her eyes and yawning.

“Miss Hina! Are you feeling alright?”, Ema quickly ran over to her

“Don’t worry Ema. Just a bit of a hangover. Did I drink that much, Poos?”

“Ma’am, I’m glad you are okay. But I’m really sorry. A lot of things happened in the past few hours.

“Like what?”

“Ema thought you were dead. Police went searching for you. Poos had to carry you and Ema snatched you two under the nose of police to bring you home secretly, and then something came up, so Ema went to kidnap Poos again and brought him back here. Now Poos will stay in the mansion for a while and -”

“Huh, that’s pretty cool. Maybe you can teach me some drums?”

“Miss, what are you even thinking at times like this?”, Ema protested and Hina just smiled and waved her away.

“So what happened?”

“Miss. It’s disgusting. Some human trash has spread unspeakably blasphemous rumour on the Internet”

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry. I will find a new male lover for Poos and it will all be settled”

“Hey -”

“Huh? So you swing that way Poos?”

“NO!”

“This makes no sense at all to me”, Hina was scratching her head. Roto just sighed and took out his phone and just handed it over to her to look at it herself.

Hina held the phone in her hand, scrolled through the article and pictures, blinked a few times, and burst out into laughter.

“Hahahaha! This is so hilarious!”

“Miss, this is not something to laugh at”, Ema was getting all fidgety now.

“What’s all that about finding Poos a new male lover?”

“To squash these rumours from getting out of hand, Miss.”

“Ah, that’s horrible though, Ema. You can’t turn Poos gay just for our convenience”

“Thank you for the support, Ma’am”

“Roto, Ema - I’m really sorry I made you concerned. But I have to tell you, Poos is a very important part of our family now”

“Miss., you can’t mean….?”

“Oh, no. Not like that. Let me explain”

Then Hina went on to explain what she told me over the dinner, which seem to make both Ema and Roto sink into deep thoughts, although Ema did still throw me glares every few seconds while listening to Hina.

“So that’s what I think. If anything, we have to protect Poos, not throw him to the lions”

Thank you.

“I see your point. So what do you suggest we do then? For the damage control”, Roto asked back.

“There is no need for damage control because there was no damage. It won’t be the last time I’ll be seen with a man in public. Not saying that I am one, but there are all sorts of gossips written about idols every day in magazines and social media. They don’t respond to every single speculation. Just let it go bro, and Ema, you too. I’m a grown-up now. No need to overreact so much”

“:sigh: Let’s just leave it at that then. But Hina, you are not an idol as you say, but you are a public figure now. Please do try to behave more responsibly”

“Tehe!”

I managed to hold back from laughing, but Roto couldn’t.

She does have her own way of handling things for sure.