“So, your girlfriend’s really pretty.” Xiumin smiled at Kris over dinner with the other members of M and a manager. Everyone choked on their food and stared at Xiumin like ‘wtf!’ and glanced at their manager, gauging his reaction. Both he and Kris were shocked. “You brought her to meet the CEO today. I overheard you and hyung talking about it. Now that we all know you have a girlfriend, no reason to keep it quiet here anymore.”

“O-oh…”

“Don’t worry about it. We kept it a secret this long; we can keep it a secret for even longer.” Xiumin grinned. “But seriously, she is way prettier than I thought.”

“What did she look like?!” Chen was bouncing in his seat.

“Like Lee Min Jung, but taller.” Xiumin smiled.

“OH MY GOD! THAT WAS HER???!!” Tao gasped. “The Olympics reporter we saw today?! Oh my god!!!!”

The manager sighed. “There’s no pretending this isn’t happening. Go ahead, tell them everything.”

“Her name is Lee Jihae, and she works in sports broadcasting as a correspondent because she’s multi-lingual. She’s one year older than me, and we met three years ago. She’s freaking amazing, and you’ll love her, because she’s awesome.” Kris blurted excitedly. He was finally able to talk about her.

“Good, I want to meet her. She’s a good actress by the way. I wouldn’t have guessed she even knew you until I saw the way you looked at her.” Xiumin teased. “With acting skills like you, how did you manage to keep her a secret for so long?”

“Shut up.” Kris rolled his eyes. “I’m not sure she’ll be up for meeting you guys though. She doesn’t meet new people well.”

“But… isn’t that part of her job description?” Lay frowned.

“Yes, but she’s… a bit different.”

“Can we meet her hyung?” Chen asked their manager.

“I’ll talk to the boss and tell him that you guys know and really want to meet her. If he says yes, we can drop the pretenses and just have you guys meet.”

“She can blend in with the staff members if it becomes an issue.”

“She’s on TV. People will eventually put two and two together.” Kris laughed.

“Still!”

A few days later, M had the okay to meet with Jihae. The CEO actually said ‘ it, have her meet K too’. So that’s where everyone was, in the SM dance practice room, waiting for Kris to bring Jihae to them. They’d been watching her interviews and video clips in anticipation. They were more than ecstatic at the prospect of meeting her, the girl Kris admitted to being stupidly in love with.

She, on the other hand, was just as nervous as she was when she was told to meet Kris’ boss. Before going over after work, she made Kris fit in time to let her go home and freshen up.

“Should I bring something?” She asked, changing into a pair of jeans and t-shirt. He told her to be relaxed, and that the other members were probably in sweats.

“No. They’ll already have food and anything they can to please you. They’ve been preparing for this meeting since we were told you guys could meet.” Kris laughed. “It’s so cute. I swear they became fans of yours or something. I think I saw the maknae line making fansigns for you.”

Jihae rolled her eyes and made them stop by a bakery anyway. She made him carry the cake and they had to separate before entering the building again. Jihae figured there were fans outside the doors 24/7.

Jihae took a breath before walking through the door Kris held open for her. She was startled by the number of eyes focused on her the moment she was in. There was all of EXO and their managers.

“Hi.” She smiled and waved awkwardly.

“You’re so pretty!” Tao gushed immediately, ignoring any form of polite courtesy, or the concept of personal space, to hug her. Kris frowned, but said nothing, since the act seemed to help Jihae relax a bit. He’d let it go just that once.

“Thank you!” She smiled.

“We’ve been watching videos of you interviewing stars for days,” Baekhyun smiled.

“Can we try to interview you and see how we do?” Chen grinned.

“Guys, give her a break, she’s tired.” Kris tried to get them to give her some more personal space.

“It’s okay.” Jihae followed the guys to an open area on the floor. “These kids are so cute. It makes me want to play with them. Unlike someone else I know.” She teased.

“What? I’m not cute?!” Kris feigned hurt. “Fine then. You’re not cute either.” He pouted and went to get her something to eat and drink.

Jihae struggled to keep a straight face while the EXO kids interviewed her. Their questions were borderline hysterical.

“You prefer ankle socks. Why is that?” Chanyeol asked her with the most serious expression he could muster. “And what is your perspective on the mustard crisis?”

Jihae leaned forward to answer just as seriously, “Ankle socks are ingenious. They cover as much as they need to, and if they’re good quality and fit right, they don’t roll down. Knee socks get a bit annoying after a while. Of course, they do serve athletic purposes, but on a regular, every day basis, ankle socks are my hosiery of choice. The mustard crisis is quite pressing. As I’m not a mustard expert, I don’t feel comfortable sharing my opinion on the mustard topic. I will say, however, that I believe the answer will be found and I have complete faith in the experts.”

“How do you feel about clowns?” Luhan asked, his serious face cracking to bits.

Jihae ignored his crack and answered. “Clowns are Satan’s pranks on humans. Not only are they scary, terrifying to some, myself included, I feel like they’re sad. Behind the painted smiles is a sad man, don’t you think? They say similar things about comedians and comics.”

“How do you do that?” A manager laughed.

“You stay so in character.” Xiumin smiled. “No matter the question.”

“Your answers were so serious!” Chanyeol cackled.

“I have another question!” Tao yelled.

“Yes?” Jihae smiled at him.

“Do you love Kris ge?”

Kris stared at him in shock and Jihae froze eyes wide. “U-uh…” Jihae couldn’t find it within herself to answer.

Kris came back to his senses and grabbed a slice of pizza. “Open.” He held the pizza in front of and shoved it in. “Oops, she can’t answer you right now. She’s busy eating. You guys too, eat.”

“Doesn’t she love you though?” Tao pouted, “If you love someone, you’re supposed to tell them. You said you love her. Isn’t that how it works?”

Jihae was quietly eating the slice of pizza, not answering.

“Some people have more trouble than others when it comes to saying certain things.” Kris said stiffly. “Even if it’s clear, voicing things can be scary. Yes, I tell her I love her, but I don’t want her to say it back before she’s ready.” He tried to explain.

“You really sound like a big brother right now.” Jihae chuckled awkwardly.

“This is my usual personality. Only you make me out to be younger than I am.”

“Sorry, I guess I still think of you as the 19 year old you were when we first met.”

“Did he really stalk you?” A manager asked.

“Yes.” Jihae smirked. “Some of my coworkers who noticed him following me actually got pretty close to calling the police.”

“I remember him. I don’t like him.” Kris frowned. It was a coworker who kept making passes at Jihae for a week before realizing she would never be interested in him. It was a very annoying week for Kris. Jihae smiled and held his hand.

“Kris followed me at lunch time almost every day for a year. And he actually thought I didn’t notice him.” Jihae laughed. “It’s not like you can ignore someone like him even if you tried.”

“So who asked who out first?”

“Him.”

“What was your first date?”

“Technically, or what I count as our first date?”

“They’re different?”

“He stalked me for a year, and then we hung out for a year. If I didn’t know any better, I would have said he wanted to be friends forever. I count our first date within the year we spent as friends instead of when we actually started dating. We went out for a movie and I kicked his at some arcade games.”

“It’s not fair. It was her first time playing video games. She actually learned how to do combos within her first game!” Kris whined. “She doesn’t go easy on you at all!”

“Is that why you haven’t taken me to an arcade since?” Jihae laughed.

“Maybe…”

“What a sore loser.” She scoffed.

“As hyung’s girlfriend,” Sehun grinned, “You must know lots of interesting secrets about hyung.”

“I do.” Jihae smiled. Kris glared at Sehun.

“Tell them nothing.” Kris whispered to her loudly.

“Oh come on! Just one embarrassing secret! Please?!” All the members pleaded with her.

“One.” Jihae smiled, conceding.

“What?! No! Don’t! You’re supposed to be on my side!” Kris protested, worried.

“Sorry, they’re cuter than you.” Jihae laughed.

“Okay! One secret!” Chen clapped excitedly.

“Kris plays cute with me. A lot. And he’s way better at it than he likes to show in public. He pouts, does the buing buing, uses a weird voice, and does aegyo dances.”

“Oh my god, my image…” Kris whined, hiding his face in her hair.

“Hyung does that?!” Everyone gaped at her.

“Yep.”

“I only do it because it makes you happy.” Kris grumbled through her hair.

“It does make me very happy.” She nodded and turned to kiss his forehead.

“It would make us happy too.” Xiumin grinned. “Why don’t you show us?”

“No. Only Jihae gets to see it.”

“The other day, I saw him talking on the phone with her, and I heard him using an aegyo tone. I thought I was gonna crash the car out of shock.” His manager scoffed.

“Okay, now that we got all this Kris relationship questions out of the way, I have very many important questions to ask noona.” Luhan grinned eagerly.

“Oh god, don’t call me noona.” Jihae sighed. “I checked, there isn’t even six months between my birthday and you two.” She gestured to Xiumin and Luhan. "Just Jihae."

“Okay, Jihae, what’s Park Jisung like? And David Beckham? I heard you played a bit with the Korean National team, how was that? Do you have their numbers? Are you friends with them? You worked with them a lot, right? Can you get me their autographs?” Luhan ambushed her excitedly.

“Park Jisung was amazing to work with. He was hilarious and well-mannered. He’s also very up to date with KPop happenings. He’s insanely hard-working. David Beckham is the same. I saw Beckham with his wife and kids and it was the cutest thing ever. They’re a gorgeous family and are much kinder than they can sometimes appear. It was more like I kicked the ball around with some other reporters and the national team went easy on us because most of us . I’m proud to say, I scored a goal, but again, they did go easy on us. I have worked with them a lot, and I did take them around and acted like a translator for some during FIFA because we all wanted to go sightseeing. It was a big group of the Koreans running around taking pictures and eating everything. They’re all very friendly and easy to work with. I do have some of their numbers, but we don’t contact each other. If I see them again, I can totally get you their autographs.” Jihae answered his questions patiently. “Is that all?”

“Can you take me with you to meet them one day?”

“That might be difficult. Aren’t you kids really busy all the time?”

“I’m never too busy to meet professional soccer players.”

Jihae laughed, “Okay. When I meet them, I’ll have you notified.”

“Oh my god! Thank you!” He was about to hug her, but Kris glared at him and pulled Jihae closer to him.

Just then Jihae’s phone rang. “Hold on, that’s my boss’s ring tone.” She excused herself and answered the phone outside. She came back, frowning slightly. Kris stood up and met her in the middle. She pulled him back to where they were sitting. “I have to go.” She sighed.

“Aw! Why?!” They all whined.

“A reporter got sick. He had an interview scheduled, and my station was able to snag it ten minutes ago. They need me on a plane ASAP.”

“I thought you no longer did the interview jobs that the other reporters don’t do?”

“This one is different.” Jihae sighed, grabbing herself a slice of pizza to go.

“How?” Kris didn’t want her to go. He was finally able to meet her more often and she just met his Korean family.

“The other reporters aren’t doing this not because they don’t want to, it’s because they can’t. Either they don’t speak English, or they’re not ranked high enough yet.” Jihae carefully wrapped the pizza in a napkin. “The interview is pretty huge. Beckham huge.”

“Who is it?”

“Hold on, let me get closer to the door before I tell you.” Jihae said and made her way to the door with Kris. All the guys were staring at her curiously. She opened the door and kissed Kris goodbye. “I’ll text you when I board and land.” She whispered to him, smiling. It’s what they always did. She turned back to the boys. “It’s Ronaldo!”

“What!?!?!” The soccer enthusiasts gaped at her as she shut the door on them and ran.

Luhan ran after her, yelling ‘Get me his autograph!!! Please!’

Hope you liked it ^^