As always preparing for their comeback had been time consuming. With dance and vocal practices, the music video shooting, hair and wardrobe appointments and album and promotional photo shoots to worry about (among other things) Jooheon hadn’t had much chance to work on finding out who Hyunwoo’s girlfriend was. Which had been fine by Changkyun. With so much to do he hadn’t had time to babysit him. But now preparations were technically over and their comeback was officially underway. They’d arrived at the broadcasting studio in time to get ready for their first comeback stage and Jooheon was holding on to his elbow to stop him following Wonho and the rest of the group up the stairs.

“So…” Jooheon said when he was sure no one had noticed they were lagging behind and was about to come back and check up on them. “I narrowed it down and I’m thinking Twice is our best bet.”

“Twice?” Changkyun echoed. He was fairly sure Jooheon was talking about the Hyunwoo has a girlfriend situation but he couldn’t help hoping that he wasn’t. The last thing he needed was for to Jooheon to start following members of Twice around. Stalking their leader was one thing, stalking girl group members was another thing entirely. It was the kind of thing you could get arrested for.

“Our last comeback lined up with theirs, remember?” he said. “Everywhere we were they were too.”

“And that’s all you have?” Changkyun asked, once again trying to talk some sense into him. It was all he seemed to be doing lately, trying to make Jooheon see sense and it was tiring. “That they were in the same building more than once? That’s clutching at straws and you know it.”

“No.” Jooheon said, sounding offended by his obvious lack of confidence in him. “No it’s not all I have. There’s more, a lot more.”

“Well you’ll have to tell me the rest of it later.” Changkyun told him, feeling a little bad. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Jooheon or that he thought he wasn’t intelligent. He trusted Jooheon more than he trusted some of his own family members and he was far too clever for his own good, no one could be as creative as Jooheon was without some intelligence there to back it up. It was just that creativity was accompanied by a vivid imagination and a unique way of looking at things that sometimes interfered with his common sense. He was trying to be a good friend that was all, stop him from taking things too far. He didn’t want him to get himself in trouble. But he couldn’t tell him that for two reasons. Reason one being that amounted to talking about his feelings and that was something he’d always had trouble doing. Reason two being he could hear footsteps on the stairs above them. Someone was heading in their direction. It was probably one of the other members coming back to hurry them up.

And sure enough it was Minhyuk who rounded the corner.

“There you are.” He said, more than hint of exasperation in his voice. “Stop chattering like a pair of old women and get up here.”

~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

Changkyun managed to grab Jooheon while most of the members were occupied in hair and make-up. They’d gone out into the corridor and found themselves a windowsill to sit on. Sorry for cutting him off earler Changkyun had mumbled an awkward apology which Jooheon had accepted immediately. Then apology out of the way he’d asked him why he was so sure Hyunwoo’s girlfriend was a member of Twice.

He had an inside source Jooheon had told him. He knew someone close to the group and that someone had told him that one of the members had been acting suspiciously. Apparently she’d been on her phone a lot lately, talking to someone who made her smile. She’d also acquired a new necklace, no one knew where it had come from but she very rarely took it off. She’d been turning red when people talked about relationships and boyfriends in interviews and had been avoiding answering their questions. And when Jooheon’s inside source had asked her who her favourite member of Monsta X was she’d answered Hyunwoo. And she hadn’t used his stage name she’d used his real name.

This all made sense of a sort and if it was true it did look a little suspicious. But Changkyun was pretty sure he knew who Jooheon’s inside source and was he was not impressed. He let Jooheon know how unimpressed he was by shoving his shoulder hard. “Why would you bring Jackson into this?”

“I never said it was Jackson” Jooheon grumbled, frowning and rubbing at his arm.

“You didn’t have to.” Jooheon knew more than one person at JYP Entertainment but Jackson was the one he felt most comfortable talking to. And he didn’t think it would have taken much for Jooheon to convince him to help him with his plan. Then he remembered something that had happened earlier in the week. “The other day when I walked in and you slammed the lid of your laptop closed, it was him you were talking to, wasn’t it?” At the time he’d thought Jooheon had been… well it didn’t matter what he’d thought Jooheon had been doing. Because what he’d actually been doing was conspiring with Jackson and for some reason that stung.  

“Maybe.” Jooheon said and Changkyun took that to mean ‘yes’.

“How could you be so stupid.” Of all the people he could have brought on board why did it have to be the loudest person they knew? Was he crazy? “What if he tells someone?”

“He’s not going to tell anyone.” Jooheon argued, his voice and his expression hardening. “He’s a friend. He wouldn’t do that.”

“He might be your friend but he’s not mine.” Changkyun heard himself say, his own voice hardening and then immediately wondered why he’d said it. Jackson always made a point of asking how he was whenever they saw each other and Changkyun had always liked talking to him. And he had no reason to think Jackson would run his mouth and get Hyunwoo in trouble. If he did that then whoever it was Hyunwoo was apparently dating would get in trouble too and he couldn’t see him doing that to someone under the same label as he was. Any bad publicity for the company would impact on Got7 too, why would he risk it?

Jooheon seemed confused by his outburst too. “I thought you liked Jackson.”

“I didn't mean it like that. I don't know him very well that's all. And I don’t dislike him.” Changkyun told him, and it was true. It was pretty much impossible to dislike Jackson. “It’s just you haven’t said anything about this girlfriend thing to me for weeks and then I find out you’ve gone behind my back and told someone else.”

“Behind your back?” Jooheon scoffed in disbelief. “I didn’t realise I had to go through you first whenever I wanted to talk to someone. What are you, my keeper?”

“That’s not what I meant.” Changkyun argued although he wasn’t entirely sure what it was he had meant. He had no idea why he was so annoyed with Jooheon for discussing it with Jackson. “I just… why didn’t you talk to me about it first? Before you went to Jackson for help.” maybe that was it. He’d been Jooheon’s sounding board for the girlfriend thing right from the start. As much as he’d argued with Jooheon about it they’d been in it together. He was annoyed at Jooheon for not keeping him in the loop that was all. That’s why finding out he’d been talking to Jackson when he wasn’t around had stung.

“Maybe if I didn’t have to worry about you calling me stupid I would have.”

Changkyun blinked, completely thrown. “I don’t…” he started to say and then stopped. He’d used the word stupid not two minutes ago so it wasn’t as if he could argue with him. “I didn’t…” he tried but stuttered to a stop again. It might sound ridiculous but he only talked to Jooheon like that because he liked him. Jooheon was one of only people he felt safe talking to without a filter and for someone who worried about what people thought about them as much as he did that was saying a lot. He’d thought Jooheon knew him well enough not take anything he said the wrong way. But maybe he’d been wrong. “I still… I just… I still think you could be wrong. But I don’t… I don’t think you’re stupid.” He mumbled, not sure what else to say.  

“If you don’t think I’m stupid,” Jooheon said, his expression softening slightly as he listened to him trip over his words, “then help me out.”

“How?” Changkyun asked, not sure why he was letting himself feel guilty when he’d only been voicing an opinion. It wasn’t like he’d set out to insult him.

“Keep a close an eye on Hyunwoo hyung for me today.”

“I can do that.” He said with a nod. And then something occurred to him. “If I’m keeping an eye on Hyunwoo hyung then what will you be doing?” Stalking Hyunwoo was usually Jooheon’s job and it was something he was getting far too good at.

“I’ll be busy watching Nayeon.” Jooheon told him as if it was no big deal.

And it was only then that Changkyun remembered the special MC today was none other than Im Nayeon, oldest member of Twice. And because he didn’t want to risk falling out with Jooheon by calling him stupid again he was pretty much giving him the go ahead to spy on her.

“I want to see if the times she’s on her phone match up to the times Hyunwoo’s on his.” Jooheon explained, as expected taking Changkyun’s silence to be his seal of approval. “And I want a look at that necklace. Maybe it’s a couple thing. It might be similar to something Hyunwoo owns.”

“Sounds like a plan…” Changkyun said although it hurt him to do so. He so badly wanted to tell Jooheon how insane he thought this was but he managed to hold it back. “Just be careful, okay?”

~~~~~~ ~~~~~

They managed to get through the day without anyone accusing Jooheon of being some kind of creepy stalker and to Changkyun this counted as a success. How no one had noticed him hanging around outside Nayeon’s dressing room or the searching look he levelled at her whenever she exchanged words with Hyunwoo he didn’t know he was just thankful they hadn’t.

Jooheon wasn’t quite as happy though. They’d come away with very little to back up his theory at all never mind any of the concrete evidence he’d been hoping to find. “They’re good.” He muttered to Changkyun as they made their way downstairs to the parking garage. “Too good.”

“Or maybe they aren’t dating.” Changkyun hazarded, but quietly. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want the other members to overhear them, he couldn’t stop thinking about Jooheon’s reaction earlier when he’d asked how he could be so stupid. He didn’t want to offend him, not again. Especially not if it meant he’d just go and share his plans with Jackson instead. He stopped, hand on the railing and foot hovering over the next step, surprised at himself for thinking that way. If Jooheon wanted to talk to Jackson about it that was his business. It had nothing to do with him. He shook his head at himself and kept walking, catching up to Jooheon who was now at the bottom of the stairs.

Not noticing anything amiss and apparently not hearing what he’d said about Hyunwoo not dating anyone Jooheon carried on. “It’s fine though.” He told Changkyun as he came up beside him once more. “I’ll just have to step up my game. That’s all.”

“Right.” Changkyun said. He didn’t like the sound of that one bit. But what could he do? As Jooheon had so kindly pointed out to him earlier he wasn’t his keeper.

~~~~~~~ ~~~~~

A/N: So many subscribers. Thanks again for reading and commenting guys. It's nice to know other people are enjoying what I write.