In an unfortunate turn of events, the refrigerator that Min Hee and I had found on the side of the road, went out, and I had to figure out what to do with my cheese. I couldn't just let it all spoil, so I had to think of something to do, and fast. Fortunately, I was able to convince the SuJu members to let me use their fridge, so long as they were able to eat some of the cheese. Since I didn't have any other choice, I had to agree, as long as they left me some. 

It took me a while to reorganize the refrigerator to fit all of the food, but as soon as I did, I had to go clean up a coffee spill in the living room. Sometimes I wondered if I should have a walkie-talkie. I coould just imagine it. "Minsung-ah, Minsung-ah, cleanup requested in upstairs bedroom 2. Cleanup requested in upstairs bedroom 2". It would be a nightmare.

I was humming to myself as I scrubbed the coffee off of the floor, wondering what I should cook for dinner. Thanks to Ryeowook, I'd been learning how to make a lot of delicious Korean foods, and sometimes took my own twists on them. I always had to cook something that would make the members happy, though, not an easy trick when they all liked different things. Still, I wasn't the best cook in the world, but I'd like to say I did pretty well.

It had only been two days since I had been rescued from the airport, and it already felt like I had never left at all. I knew that as soon as I was done there, I would head to my dance class, and then my vocal training lesson, just as I had before my sister had gotten sick. 

When I finally finished my work and went to the company building, though, I was greeted at the door by one of the company secretaries.  She told me to go straight to the office of the icy lady from earlier, the one that had grudginly let me stay at the company. Did this have something to do with the dating scandal she mentioned so grudgingly earlier?

I went to the office, knocking on the door before I entered. When I stepped into the room, Sungmin, sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk, turned around to wave at me, then pat the seat of the chair next to him. I slid into it, setting my purse on the floor next to me. "Shiljjang... can you tell me why I was called here?"

"Ah, Minsung. You're ten minutes later than I expected you."

"Choisoimida. I was late making dinner at the dorm."

"Really?" Sungmin turned to me, his eyes bright. "What's for dinner?"

"Spicy fish soup."

"Oh, that sounds good! But what about Eunhyuk? He doesn't like fish..."

"What are you talking about? He likes Donghae just fine. Besides, everyone else likes it, so he can deal."

The lady cleared pointedly, and Sungmin and I looked at each other for a second before hiding small smiles by looking at our feet.

"Please try to focus, you two."

"Yes, ma'am," we both said.

"Alright, so as I started to tell your sunbae, Minsung, you're both here about the results of the recent scandal that's cropped up because of Sungmin coming to get you from the airport."

"But we're not dating," I said immediately.

"She's just a very good friend. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to catch her in time, so I was really, really happy when I was able to stop her. I didn't mean to make it into a dating scandal," Sungmin explained. The way he said that he was really, really happy when he was able to stop me made little butterflies rise up in my stomach.

"Yes, well, try to convince the fans of that. Actually, I'd be much happier if the fans got upset and started flipping tables about it or something. But they're not."

"They're not?!" I gasped. Honestly, one of my biggest concerns when I heard that some people had seen Sungmin and I in the airport and had taken it the wrong way was a horrible fear that the ELF would hunt me down in the night. I'd been avoiding dark streets for the past few days, and never travelling alone. Actually, I'd even been partially avoiding Sungmin.

"No. It would be much easier to deny it if they were. Instead, the ELF have been saying things like 'Oh, Queen Be Hwaiting!' and 'so happy for you!' and 'We knew this would happen someday!' and 'The ELF will support Queen Be! Just don't forget to share!" She looked up at us. "Even telling them the truth, it's not something they want to hear. It's excrutiating."

"They're happy for me?" I couldn't help but let my jaw drop open. I looked at Sungmin, not believing it at all, even though I'd seen those kinds of comments on my Twitter, but hadn't understood where they were coming from. I guess it made sense, now. Of course the ELF would be like that. They approved of me, because I gave them juicy details about SuJu, and thus, being the wonderful people they are, didn't criticize, but instead said "I hope Oppa can be happy with her." Still, it wasn't right. "But... but we're not dating." It sounded more like I was trying to convince myself than anyone else. 

"Well, as of now, you are."

"WHAT?!" I stared at her, my eyes huge. I couldn't believe it. Wasn't a company's job to DENY dating rumors, not encourage them?! When I looked at Sungmin again, he had a similar expression, but not quite as surprised.

"It's inconvenient for us to try to deny the rumors, because they'll just be disappointed, and stocks will drop. So instead of wasting our resources like that, we're instead just going to let them believe that you are. All you have to do is pretend to be a couple for a few weeks, maybe a month. Then just 'break up', and say that it was mutual. Then it'll fade into oblivion, and we won't have to worry about anymore. It'll be easy."

I remembered what I'd told Sungmin when I'd apologized to him. Just forget everything. I want to be your friend, Oppa. Nothing less, nothing more. Did that promise still count if it wasn't my idea to be something more than friends?

"We can do it," Sungmin stated, surprising me. He wasn't against this?! "Minsung and I are good friends. It won't be too hard. And Minsung is a good actress. You'll be okay, right, Minsung?" He smiled at me, and I melted.

"Y-y-yeah, of course. It c-c-c-c-an't be too hard." I stuttered, quickly ripping my eyes away from his smile.

"Good. So, we're leaving it up to you to figure out how to handle this. Of course, if you don't do well enough, we'll have to step in."

"NO!" I exclaimed before I could stop myself. I don't know why, but something about SM forcing me and Sungmin to be a couple just seemed horribly wrong. "We'll be fine by ourselves."

"If you insist, trainee Minsung," she replied lazily, emphasizing the word "trainee" as if to remind me that I had no power. 

She reminds me of a cat, I thought. A leopard. No-- a snow leopard. She's so cold, and her eyes always look so lazy. Definitely a snow leopard."

"You may go," she said, waving us out.

 Sungmin held the door open for me, and I stepped out, my cheeks flaming. "I can't believe you agreed to this," I hissed as soon as the door closed. 

"Why? I thought you liked me..."

I stopped, frozen. He was looking at the ground, his eyes downcast. It was adorable.

"No, no, no, no, Oppa, I DO like you!" I yelled, hugging him, mostly because I couldn't stop myself from doing so. He looked so disappointed, I couldn't help myself. "I just... isn't this a problem for you? I mean, you could be actually dating people. Women your age, or a noona. I'm ten years younger than Oppa. I feel like I'd be dragging you down."

I let go, and we waked down the hallway next to each other in silence for a few seconds. I couldn't think of anything else to say, but his not saying anything was driving me crazy.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, to break the awkward silence, when he finally spoke.

"Leave it to the ELF Queen to be worried about me."

"Wha... what do you mean by that?" I seemed to be stammering a lot that day. 

"Minsung should be more worried that this would affect her training schedule. That people will see you as this for the rest of your life. But no, you're worried about me. I'm okay, really. You don't have to worry. Besides, this could be good for me."

I tripped over my foot, thrown off-guard. "How's that?"

He stopped, turning to face me. "Minsung, Kyuhyunnie says that you'd do anything we'd ask you to. Because you care for us that much. Is that right?"

I nodded. "Absolutely. If my Oppas need my help, I'm there."

He started walking again, letting me keep in step with him. "If I got a girlfriend, would you be happy for me, like Shiljjang says the other ELF are?"

"Of course!"

"Then would you help me get a girlfriend?"

"I..." I hesitated, then sighed and said the answer I knew I would eventually give anyway. "I would."

"Great!" He clapped his hands together, smiling. "So, here's the plan. Because of the scandal, Minsung pretends to be my girlfriend. You're a lot younger than me, so people think of you as a young, pretty foreign girl."

"But I'm not," I blurted out. He just stopped and looked at me. 

"Pretty, that is," I clarified, not meeting his eyes. This is why I felt like I was dragging him down.

"What do you mean, you're not pretty?" He seemed confused.

"I'm short and stocky, with heavy legs, bad skin, and dishwater blonde hair. I'm bnot exactly the ideal either here or back home."

He thought about it, then shrugged. "Well, I think you're pretty. And that's all that matters, right?"

I felt the blood rush to my face. "Uh-um, yeah. If Oppa says so." If you say that again, I think I might faint.

”So anyway, young foreign girl. It's bound to get some girls' attention, right?"

Suddenly it clicked into place. "You're going to use this to make other girls jealous?!"

"Minsung is so smart. So what do you think?"

"I think it sounds like a Kyuhyun or a Heechul plan. It's too evil for you."

"But will you help me?"

"Of course. Whatever I have to do to make my Oppa happy," I sighed, my mind whirling with thoughts of what it would be like to pretend to be his girlfriend.

"Okay, great! Minsung, what do you know about dating?" He asked.

I bit the inside of my cheek, then gave my answer. "Nothing. I've never had a boyfriend before."

"NEVER?!"

"Never," I said, slightly miserably. "Before the drama with JiHoo, the only confessions I'd ever gotten were jokes. Nobody ever actually wanted to go out with me."

"Well, that's their loss." 

"All I know, I know from watching dramas," I added, my cheeks flaming again at his comment.

"Like what?"

"I don't know... cute things. Like holding hands, and the guy giving the girl his jacket whenever she's cold, and... and..."

"Oh wow... should I help you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if you're helping me, why don't I teach you how to date?"

I jerked to a stop, staring at him. "Sungmin-oppa, that's kind of..."

"Well, we're doing it anyway. If I don't teach you, how will you pull off acting like it?"

I bit my lip, then nodded. "Okay... so how do I start?"

He smiled, stepping back up to me. "Well, first..." My heart tingled when he took my hand and laced his fingers with mine. "You were right about holding hands. It's always a good way to start." His hand was warm. I wondered how he was able to stand being in contact with my gross, sweaty palms. But my heart was pounding so loud, it was blocking out my thoughts. 

We started to walk again, but now holding hands. "And you need to be more okay with touching, okay? You don't need to be shy."

"You mean like this?" I giggled, falling sideways against his shoulder, so that my weight made him fall offstep.

He laughed. "Yeah, things like that. And we should go places. Like, cute places. Where would you want to go on a first date?"

 I never got the chance to answer, because just then Min Hee ran up with my laptop computer in her hands.

"MEL! Oh goodness gracious, THERE you are!"

I looked at Sungmin, then shrugged. "Were you looking for me, Min Hee?" I asked, stepping a bit closer to Sungmin.

"Yeah, I have to..." she trailed off, looking from me, to Sungmin, then back to me. "What's going on?"

"I'll tell you later," I insisted, biting my lip. "You go first."

She launched right in, urging both of us into the practice room so we could sit down. "The girls and I found this when we were online. Actually, we were hacking into your Twitter account-"

"Huh?!"

She waved my protests away. "All in good fun. Anyway, we hacked into your Twitter account and found this video, posted by your friend Jacklyn. Have ou seen it?"

"No... I've been too busy to go on Twitter."

"You need to see this." She put the laptop on my lap, then clicked the link that Jacklyn had provided. "This girl's videos have been going viral all over the Tube. It's insanity."

Sungmin looked over my shoulder as the video started, seeming too curious to leave, like I'd thought he would.

The video began. I watched intently, for Min Hee's sake. It was a music room, not unlike our vocal training room. The camera focused on a piano, and, from the side, a girl appeared, and sat down at the piano. She was very pretty, I noticed, but multi-racial. She looked Korean, but her nose, eyes and hair reminded me of a White person. She nodded to the camera, and then began to play and sing. "Under your skin... again. I~ can't say no... to you..."

I made a face. "Come on, Min Hee, there's nothing major about at girl singing 'Good Enough.' I'm not the only person to ever cover that song, you know."

Min Hee shook her head. "Just watch. You'll see what I mean."

I had to force my eyes to stay on the screen, because they kept wanting to wander to Sungmin. I focused intebntly as the video moved on from the girl on the piano, to the same girl, only in a dance practice room much like the one we were sitting in. The music started: Super Junior's "Be My Girl".

"Oh, this is my audition song!" I called out with glee, watching closer.

"It was?" Sungmin asked.

"For the dance, yeah. It's one of my favorite songs." I shrugged and went back to the video. "Huh... that's weird... it looks a lot like the dance I did." Just as I said that, the girl in the video did a perfect body wave in time with the music, and I shook my head. "Oh, wow! She's really good! I didn't do that in my audition! Min Hee, are you making me watch this just so I'll get jealous?!"

Min Hee pursed her lips. "Just keep watching, Mel!"

"Okay, okay, I'm watching!"

Actually, the girl's dance to "Be My Girl" was uncannily similar to mine. The main differences I noticed was the difficulty of the technique. It was like my dance, but looked much cooler. "This is... kind of scary..."

"NOW do you see what I mean?!" Min Hee exclaimed.

"What? What's wrong?" Sungmin asked, getting closer so he could see the screen better. 

"This dance looks a lot like what I did for my audition. A LOT a lot."

"It gets even worse," Min Hee assured us. 

I watched in horror as the girl danced to my cover of "Rock Star" by Super Junior, that my dance class and I had worked so hard on. She sang every song I had done for class, even "Aloha 'Oe".  She was a fantastic singer, singing the Hawaiian song with much more technique than I had, although her pronunciation wasn't as good as mine. Still, for the other songs she sang, I couldn't help but notice that her Korean was perfect, unlike mine. 

The worst, like Min Hee said, was yet to come. The final video clip was of the girl, once again in the dance practice room, with a very attractive male partner. The music began, and I felt my fist clench tight enough for my fingernails to draw blood. I didn't even notice I was doing it until i felt Sungmin's hand on my own. I relaxed a bit when he did so, but still had a hard time remaining calm.

"It's my performance of 'Mirotic'! It's practically the EXACT same thing!" I cried, as she did the elaborate twists, and the air kicks, and he yanked her back to him. "All the way down to wear he starts ripping her clothes off!"

The video finally ended with her pushing her male partner to the ground, standing over her win confidently. The same thing I had done with JiHoo. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply to calm my temper. "What... how...?"

Min Hee folded the laptop closed, moving it aside so she could scootch in closer. "Her name's Lily. She's from LA, and she's three-quarters Korean, one-fourth American. She's been doing these videos for the past month, and nobody noticed the similariy until your friend Jacklyn, because no one else has seen your videos released. Somehow, and none of the girls know how, she got ahold of your videos, and copied them, then added her own touches to make them more impressive. She totally stole from you."

"But how could she know? The only people I showed were my family and my friends. And they wouldn't..."

"No, I don't think they did. Personally, I think it was one of the trainees."

"You don't think JiHoo would've..." I started to ask, but wasn't able to finish.

"No, I don't think so. He was mad, but I don't think he's the kind of person to do this. Someone else that hates you. But I don't know who."

"Wait, you said this girl's name was Lily?" Sungmin suddenly asked.

"Yeah, why?" Min Hee tilted her head to the side.

"It's just, when I went into the manager's office today before Minsung got there, she was talking over the phone about a new trainee coming from LA, called Lily. Apparently the company had seen her videos and asked her to come to the company."

Min Hee and I looked at each other, then at Sungmin.

"You mean the person who stole my performances... is coming?! HERE?!" I exclaimed, wide-eyed.

"Maybe. It looks like it."

I'd never thought my acts were good enough that someone would copy them. Steal them from me. The possibility had never even really occurred to me. "But... but the company KNOWS these are my performances! They've seen them! They're just inviting her here?"

"Actually, the only ones who saw a lot of your performances were your teachers and the other trainees. The only ones everyone saw were your audition video and your performance of 'Good Enough'. And like you said, that could have been coincidence."

"But... but we have evidence! Min Hee, you still have the original tape, right?" I urged, turning to her in desperation.

She bit her lip. "Actually... it went missing a few weeks ago. I really don't know..."

I would've burst into tears already, if Sungmin hadn't been there. As it was, I was having trouble controlling myself. "We'll find another way. This is pissing me off!" I yelled, jumping to my feet.

This could NOT be happening!