The large crowd that had gathered at the fan signing that day was loud, their screams and laughs echoing throughout the lobby of the department store. Amid the flashing cameras, at a small table in the center, Jong Kook signed his name for and spoke briefly with each fan. Throughout all of this, he thought about his time with the American at the gym that morning. He had been impressed by her workout. She had joked with him, telling him that she could do more squats than he could, and he had taken her up on this dare. He won, as he expected, but he had been surprised by how much weight she had on the squat rack and how long she had managed to keep up with his reps. He liked watching her thigh muscles work.

The next fan approached, placing a poster of Jong Kook on the table for him to sign. He asked her name and as he looked up, he realized that he already knew her name. It was Sin Yuri. He was shocked that she had come to his event and politely asked why she was there. She reminded him that she was, as she had mentioned the night before, a big fan of his. He looked down and signed the poster, but when he handed it back to her, she didn’t leave. She said that she hoped they could meet for coffee afterward and talk. She said that she knew he was seeing the American, and she only wanted to be friends. He told her that he didn’t drink coffee. But she insisted that he meet her at the nearby café. She said it was important. He nodded hesitantly, and when she left, he continued signing and smiling for his fans, but his thoughts were now on Yuri.

When the event was over and the crowd had cleared, Jong Kook’s manager approached him. He said that a photo of him and the American was online and that he had heard some rumors that it would be broadcasted on an entertainment news show that evening. Jong Kook asked about the photo – what exactly it was of, who had taken it – but Gap Jin knew only that it had been uploaded by a fan, and that it had created a scandal online.

As they walked through the lobby on their way out, Jong Kook saw Yuri sitting in the café. He asked Gap Jin to meet her and to tell her that he would talk with her in his car, away from any fans that might see them.

As he sat in his car waiting for her, he looked around occasionally to make sure that no one had spotted him. Soon, he saw her walking toward him and when she sat down beside him, she told him how much she admired him. She said that he was her sunbae, that she cared about his image, and that he should think about how his relationship with the American might ruin that image.

Jong Kook thought about what his manager had just told him, about