“Chanyeol!” I find myself suddenly exclaiming, and I pull away from him with such ferocity that I trip and fall into the boxes behind me with an almighty crash. A moment later I hear a sound on the other side of the shutter. Oh great, my clumsiness has alerted the crazy fans to our location. I scramble to get up, only resulting in managing to submerge myself even deeper in the pile of boxes.

“Lia?” I hear Chanyeol ask as he tries to feel around in the boxes for me. Before I can answer him the shutter clatters open and I am practically blinded by the light that floods into the room. I hold a hand up to my eyes and hold my breath. I’m hardly in any position to run away right now. What with my legs stuck in two boxes and my in another. And then one falls on my head.

“Ow.”

“What’s going on?” A familiar voice says and both Chanyeol and I look around to see the others, that is, Lay, Luhan, Xiumin and Sehun looking on at our rather ridiculous situation.

“Hi.” I say from within my boxes. “I could really use a hand.” And with that, they all jump into actions. Two of them move the boxes from around me while Chanyeol and Xiumin haul me to my feet. I quickly let go of Chanyeol’s hand and turn to Xiumin. “You really saved my there… literally.” He doesn’t understand, but I still find myself chuckling at my own joke. I brush the dirt and dust off myself. “How did you know we were here?” I ask.

“This is our hideout.” Xiumin says.

“You have to hide a lot then I take it?” He just shrugs and smiles at me like it’s no big deal. I look over at the others, Sehun is talking to Chanyeol and laughing, probably about me, while Lay and Luhan are whispering something to each other, looking serious.

“We should go.” Luhan says, his eyes only fall on me for a second before looking away.

“Yeah, before they come back.” I agree, trying to hold his eye contact. Why is everyone acting so damn strange today? We head out and I barely get to say goodbye to the guys before their security whisks them away in the cars. I avoid Chanyeol’s eye contact as they are leaving. He is staring at me like he really wants to get my attention but I don’t want to talk to him. That was a bizarre and surreal experience, being trapped in the dark with him, and my mind went to places where it absolutely should not. But I can’t be bothered trying to explain that to him. So I guess ignoring him is the harsher, yet easier thing to do. I have to make my own way back to the SM building, which manages to cost me quite a bit. Thanks, Exo, you bastards. The rest of the day continues with very little excitement and I head home expecting the same level of activity. This is not the case. I am barely through the front door when I hear Eun Mi’s feet scamper from her room to meet me.

“Are you dating Park Chanyeol?!” She basically screams at me.

“Excuse me?” I reply, completely taken aback. “I haven’t even taken off my shoes and you come at me with that?”

“You’re on the internet!” She says and grabs my hand. She pulls me into her room and sits me on her bed. A moment later she is next to me with her laptop on her knee and I am immediately stunned by what I see. On some kind of gossip website, the sites I like to avoid like the plague, is a picture of me and Chanyeol stood outside of the restaurant this afternoon. I am saying something and he is smiling down at me. Eun Mi scrolls down, as I am suddenly incapable of all motor skills, and then there is another picture of us holding hands, running away from the cameras. Those sneaky little fan girls. Making an innocent situation look like some sordid affair. This is what I hate about gossip sites and the media. They take a situation and twist it into something that it is not. Eun Mi scrolls even further to show a picture of me climbing into the guy’s car, once again holding Chanyeol’s hand.

“This is bull!” I suddenly shout, making Eun Mi jump.

“Yah!” She says and hits me on the arm. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m sorry, but this is so ridiculous! Okay? I was at the restaurant with a whole bunch of the guys, and he was just helping me into the car, and we were trying to get away from those crazy fans…”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were at lunch with them? Why was it a secret.”

“Because I didn’t want you to freak out. It was just a meal with the guys I work with.”

“Yeah, but they’re not just any guys, Lia!” Eun Mi almost sounds a little bit annoyed.

“They asked me to lunch! I’m hardly going to be rude and say no!”

“A couple of weeks ago you would have.” And that sounded resentful.

“Hey, what is this? Are you mad at me?” Eun Mi fiddles with the sleeve of her sweater for a moment.

“It’s just, you say you don’t like them, but then I see you dancing with them in clubs and now these pictures…” I’m so mad I nearly knock the laptop off Eun Mi’s lap but I don’t. I take a couple of calming breaths and shift on the bed so I can face her.

“Eun Mi. You were at the club, you saw what happened. I didn’t want to go say hi to them but YOU dragged me. And this? They asked me for lunch, I went, I had bibimbap, it was nice. I stepped outside to take your call and Chanyeol followed me. We were having a nice innocent conversation when we noticed the girls who took these pictures and Chanyeol dragged me away. Nothing funny is going on, I mean it when I tell you I’m not interested in them, okay? I was being friendly and polite, and so were they. That’s all there is to it.” Eun Mi looks at me for a long while, her brow creased into a frown as though she is considering my words.

“You know I believe you.” She finally says and I let out an audible sigh. “I just don’t get why you didn’t tell me you were with them.”

“I’m sorry Eun Mi. I just thought I would respect their privacy, okay? It was silly of me, I know I can trust you, it was just a silly decision I made at the time. Forgive me?” I hold my arms open to her and it takes her a moment before she smiles and falls into my hug. I nuzzle her neck with my nose as we hug and she laughs before fighting me off, I know she hates her neck being touched. “There. I hate you being mad at me. Now, on the subject of me dating Park Chanyeol.” I let out a snort of sarcastic laughter that seems a little too forced. Eun Mi looks as though she almost catches onto this, but she doesn’t say anything.

“I know, you said he annoys the crap out of you.”

“That he does.” I say and get up from the bed. “Now it’s been a long day, so I’m going for a bath, okay?” Eun Mi smiles and I leave, a guilty knot in my stomach. I should have told her about what happened with me and Chanyeol, our strange moment in the darkness. But I couldn’t. The idea of that being anything other than just that, a strange moment, freaks me out too much. And to talk about it out loud would make it real, it would give it some kind of power over me that it shouldn’t have. So I won’t mention it, I won’t think about it. It’s in the past and that’s that.

The next day at work I am greeted by my boss Jung Su, who plops a camera down onto the desk in front of me. I stare at it and for a moment I am terrified it is some kind of cryptic hint that he has seen to pictures of me on the internet and I am fired for lying to him about my acquaintance with the guys.

“You have a new assignment. I am putting a lot of trust in you for this.” He says to me and I have to hold in my sigh of relief. “Over the next week the boys will be performing a number of appearances and shows to promote their upcoming album, so I want you to shoot a little behind the scenes footage for our youtube page.” I look up at Jung Su as though I am struggling to understand him.

“Sunbae… why are you giving me this assignment?” I ask him, trying not to sound too alarmed or terrified at this new responsibility.

“Because you’ve been working well. And you seem to click with the guys quite naturally.” He gives me a look and I almost break out into a cold sweat. Does he know something? Why am I so nervous? It’s not like there is really anything to know… much.

“Kamsahamnida.” I say to him and awkwardly try to bow in my seat, which results in me nearly head butting the desk.

“Just don’t let me down. And remember, this is for your job. It isn’t an excuse to slack off. I want you to work hard on this. But make sure the video is