The following Monday Jess was later than usual at work. She was getting her morning coffee at their office kitchen when she noticed piles of tabloid news papers on the bar table. Her eyes caught grainy dark photos and she stopped feeling slight uneasiness at the familiarity of the pictures. She slowly put her cup of coffee on the table and picked up the paper. There, on the front page of Korea celebrity gossip newspaper, was a picture of her and Jiyong in the elevator, probably taken from the building’s security cameras. The paper was in Korean, so Jess did not understand anything written there apart from ‘GD’ which was typed in English. That cap obviously did not help him. Jess flipped through the paper to find the rest of the story and saw pictures of Jiyong side by side with a beautiful Korean woman. There were other blurry pictures of him and some woman leaving a cafe together.

Lily was passing by the table on her way to Dan’s office. Jess called her and asked her to translate the article for her.

‘This is about Kwon Jiyong, G-Dragon. He was seen with a woman leaving restaurant Candle last Friday,’ read Lily. ‘They are saying it might be singer Jenny from a Korean girl band. That’s her picture. They have been seen together a few times last month. So, it seems that things are getting serious, they think that he might have proposed her.’

Jess started regretting that she asked Lily. She saw Lily’s eyes glancing through pictures and then suddenly coming back to the elevator shot. She furrowed her forehead as trying to remember something. Jess waited for it to sink in and she was right to guess.

‘Hold on,’ Lily suddenly raised her head from the news paper, her eyes widened with excitement. ‘Didn’t you go to Candle last Friday? Did you see GD there?’

‘Uhm...’ Jess hesitated and she got immediately punished for it.

‘Aaaah! It was you! Wasn’t it? It is the same blazer and the dress looks the same! Oh my God, Jess! You know Jiyong?! You are dating Jiyong?!’ Lily was shrieking at the top of her lungs.

‘No, no, it is not like that! Please lower your voice. You will freak everyone on the floor out! We just had a business dinner. He will help us to get into SFW. That is it! Candle was just supposed to have the best security in town, but obviously thats not the case.’

‘Pizines dinner?’ Lily furrowed her eyebrows suspiciously. ‘But how do you know him?’

‘That’s kind of long story, I will tell you later,’ Jess brushed off the question. ‘The point is this was really not romantic.’ She felt that her face was burning, she was getting frustrated with herself and nervous thinking that Lily would blab this out to everyone in the office.

‘Oh, ok. Well, you have very important friends!’ It looked like Lily bought the story. Or maybe the thought of Jess dating one of the biggest South Korean celebrities just seemed too far-fetched. Either way Jess was happy to see the expression of anxious curiosity change into slight disappointment on Lily’s face.

‘He’s not really a friend. Please promise you wont tell anyone about this. I would not like for this to spread out and hurt our company. You know what I mean?’

‘Oh, yes. Sure. I understand,’ Lily’s face lit up with ‘your-secret-is-safe-with-me’ type of a smile.

‘Great. I knew I could rely on you,’ Jess conspiratorially winked at Lily thinking that she would probably not keep her word.

Jess returned to her office and opened a browser on her computer. She had earlier refrained from reading Korean gossip about Jiyong sensibly considering that it would not be fair to him and could not provide her with any useful information either.

She entered “GD and Jenny” in the search engine and was flooded with kaleidoscope of pictures of the two, mostly snapshots from their concerts, mostly of one or the other, with only a few pictures showing both either holding hands or walking next to each other. One picture stirred up some especially unpleasant emotions in Jess. It was a close up of Jiyong’s face smiling and looking at the girl who was standing with her back towards the camera. They were surrounded by people but the two were entirely focused on each other. Jess opened the link and read the article. It was dated August 23^rd, apparently the two were seen partying with friends in a new night club in Seoul. This was just two weeks before their date, just a day before Jess called him. Jess suddenly felt disgusted. The thought that he could have been cheating on someone with her was revolting. Jess had been cheated on before, the pain she went through was not something she wanted to inflict on anyone else. This time Jess was the other woman. And she hated that idea.

She spent the rest of the day distractedly answering emails and sitting in the meetings not contributing anything essential. By 3pm she realized that she was not productive so she decided to cut her day short. She was just about to leave the office when her mobile phone rang. It was Jiyong.

‘Hey, how are you doing?’ he attempted to sound cheerful, but she heard he was nervous.

‘I am good, thanks!’ Jess paused. ‘Well, a little surprised to find a picture of me on Daily Star News, but otherwise I am having a regular Monday, I guess.’ Jess couldn’t help it, she sounded frustrated.

‘Yeah, I was surprised to see that too,’ Jiyong paused waiting for Jess to answer. When she didn’t, he hurried to fill in the awkward silence. ‘Do you think we could meet today or tomorrow? I think it would be good for us to talk.’

‘I don’t know. I have a lot of work to do. I think I need some time to process this. I don’t know if all this is a good idea for me.’

‘Jess,’ he started.

‘No, Jiyong,’ Jess interrupted him. ‘I think I hadn’t realized what I was getting myself into. And now that I have seen those papers, I just understood… I don’t think I am ready for this, you know. I think you are a great guy, and I am immensely flattered that you are interested in me, but we are from completely different worlds, and I just don’t think we would work together anyway. And I don’t want to risk my privacy and my career for a fling.’

Jess heard herself babble and Jiyong very quiet on the other end. When she finished, he waited a few seconds before simply saying: ‘OK, I completely understand. If you change your mind, give me a call.’

Jess heard a click sound. He hang up. With every word she said she knew it was coming out all wrong and very mean even though she did not intend it to be so. His reply confirmed her fear. She felt horrible, but she knew it was necessary.

She stood at her table still holding her phone in one hand and bag in another hand when Mark passed by her office.

‘Hey, are you ok?’ his question pulled her out of that confused state of mind when one thinks and does not think at the same time.

‘Yea... I am… I was just about to leave. I do not seem to be producing any value today, so I might as well take off.’

‘Yea, you seemed a little distracted during our sales review meeting,’ Mark paused observing Jess. ‘I am also leaving, I have a friend visiting from States, I am taking him out on a Seoul bar and restaurant crawl tonight.’

‘Pub crawl on Monday! Sounds a bit excessive!’ Jess was distractedly collecting papers and sticky notes and shoving them inside her bag. She was planning to do some work at home later that night.

‘I know,’ Mark laughed, ‘but the guy is in for only two days, so we might as well make the most out of them. Want to join us?’ Mark was standing in her doorway smiling all his six feet two inches away. Jess looked up at him and saw it in his eyes.

‘She told you, didn’t she?’

‘Well, lets just say: it is a new ‘company secret’! She did tell what an important secret it was!’

‘Damn you, Lily!’ Jess exhaled in frustration.

‘Come on! Join us for a drink! I promise it will make you feel better. My friend is hilarious. He is the funniest guy I know.’

‘I need to work, Mark. I haven’t gotten anything done today.’

‘You will get it done tomorrow. Lets be honest, you are not going to get anything done tonight anyway, right?’

Jess considered it for a while. She didn't want to admit it, but he was right. She would have probably spent whole shoving something unhealthy down and searching for more pictures of GD and his alleged girlfriend.

‘Fine! Maybe you are right,’ Jess rolled her eyes. ‘Your friend better be good!’ she added finally walking out of her office.

They went straight to Hongdae area where Mark’s friend was waiting for them. They started off with a light dinner, beer and sake in one of the cute Japanese izakaya’s. It was drizzling rain when they got there. They took table next to open window. Sitting there with two broad shouldered loud men and looking through the window at the busy streets filling up with people running from work or to meet up with their friends, Jess suddenly felt the same weird feeling she had on her first day in Seoul. It was a strange state of feeling home and lonely at the same time. There was something bitter sweet about it. It was cozy but cold, like seating in front of a fireplace on a cold rainy night.

Mark did not fail on his promise. His friend, Jason, was easy-going, funny and all around nice kind of guy. They certainly made her feel better. They talked about GD, kpop culture, men in kpop, women in kpop. They watched a few of GD’s music videos with the guys concluding that the guy must be an . They talked more. By the time they moved on to another place, they have concluded that Korean men’s es are shorter than their western counterparts’ and that made them “no good” for western women.

They moved on to a small restaurant where they had some Jajangmien, bibimbap, tobokki and other tourist-worthy Korean food to satisfy Jason’s ‘must taste’ list. From there they went around a few bars and cafes showing off the “Korean cuteness” to Jason. By the end of the evening, it was concluded that Korean women are definitely very attractive. Jason went as far as feeling bad for the local guys who not only had to face the competition of their own, but also of the guys from other countries (with the guy in point being Mark) who were coming into their country and stealing their women.

Jess didn't remember how she got home that night. She enjoyed the guys’ company and had too much to drink which she had not done in a really long time. The more she drank though the more she enjoyed herself, so she just continued drinking. It was one of those rare nights out when she actually got relaxed and let go of her stre­ss, her daily to-do lists, her constant mental checking and processing of things in the background of her brain. She let go of herself and just enjoyed the moment.

The following morning Jess woke with worst ever hangover. Thinking of the previous night though, she knew it was worth it.