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At the cafeteria in his campus building, Chanyeol sat down at the corner by the floor-to-ceiling window. The sun-ray penetrated the clear transparent glass and showered him with its warmth. In between munching his food, he typed in ‘KJ Entertainment’ in the search bar of a portal site and opened one of the very first few results—a page about the agency company.

Owned by Kim Kitae, Kibum’s father, and Kim Juntae, his uncle, it’s one of Korea’s leading agencies. His name, Kibum’s, was even listed as one of the stockholders. “No wonder Kibum is living so well,” Chanyeol sneered. There was another name, not under a company whatsoever, listed and he suspected it belonged to Kibum’s cousin—Eunji’s boss—whom he saw the night before. So he opened another browsing page and searched up ‘Kim Junmyeon.’

He found an SNS account under the name and click the link to make sure that it really was Junmyeon’s. “Bingo!” he cried out.

One of the latest posts was a re-post of Kim Sungkyu’s own and there was a picture attached to the sentence. When he opened it, a picture of three men whom he assumed is involved with Eunji was shown.

The backdrop of the picture was familiar, the lake where the restaurant he took Eunji to was, so he concluded right away that it was Kim Junmyeon and Kim Sungkyu’s back that he saw the other day. ‘Business lunch,’ he remembered Kibum told him.

“Ah . . . so that’s why . . .” Everything was starting to fall into place; the puzzle pieces were fitting in with each other and showed a clearer picture than before; and Chanyeol was starting to understand. ‘So Kim Sungkyu is an artist under Kibum’s agency and he, as well as his cousin, are one of the stockholders,’ he summarized in his head.

Then he thought, ‘How did Eunji get herself involved with these guys?’ while scrunching his forehead.

“Yo, Chanyeol!”

‘Speak of the devil . . .’ He locked his phone and slid it back into its place, in his jeans pocket. “Hello, sunbae,” Chanyeol monotonously replied and then carried on with his lunch.

“So tell me again how you’re friends with Jeong Eunji.” Since the person he’s asking about wasn’t present, he was talking with that usual tone of voice.

Chanyeol rolled his eyes, thanks to Eunji now he’s got to make something up that would convince him but still logical enough. ‘Ah, don’t bother. He’s too narrow-minded, anyway.’ “We met through mutual friend,” he told him, “her cousin, to be exact.”

“Oh? Who is it?”

The younger one let out a nervous chuckle and then said, “Uhm, why’d you ask? You wouldn’t know that person, anyway.” He took in a spoonful of rice into his mouth and looked away to avoid Kibum’s eyes. “Aren’t you gonna eat?” Chanyeol gestured to Kibum’s tray in front of him.

“Right.” Kibum picked his chopsticks and spoon up then started to eat.

“So . . .” Chanyeol tried to sound as casual as possible, “Is that popular artist these days. . . what’s his name again . . .”

Kibum looked up, “Huh? Who? Sungkyu?”

Chanyeol nodded and then asked, “Is he under your agency?” He knew, but he was just trying to bring the name up so Kibum would talk about that person and maybe Chanyeol could get something out of it.

“Yes, he is. He’s making so much money these days,” he said, “Such win-win situation.” Again with the bragging, Chanyeol rolled his eyes hard and let out a barely audible sigh. “But he’s causing trouble as well,” Kibum added then. “That’s why we took him to lunch the other day.”

‘See. It was indeed Junmyeon and Sungkyu who were with Kibum,’ Chanyeol thought as he looked at his sunbae. “We?” he asked.

“Me and my cousin, Junmyeon,” he answered in a casual tone. “We’re entrusted to manage our company’s artist too, you know,” he said after gulping down the water he just took in.

Chanyeol scoffed to himself. ‘His narrow-mind isn’t so useless after all.’ “Oh?” Chanyeol responded. “What kind of trouble did Kim Sungkyu caused?”

“Ah . . . you’re so not up-to-date, dude,” Kibum sighed hard, “It’s all on the news.” He put his chopsticks down and went on with his explanation, “You see, Sungkyu admitted on media that he dated a girl in the middle of last year and I, as his agency’s representative, don’t even know about this.” A week had probably passed since the news broke out; Chanyeol thought that it had died down. “Moreover, he gave hints about the girl and now his fans go all rage mode because they, as well, don’t even know about this”

“What’s the big deal?” Chanyeol argued. “Sungkyu is also a human, doesn’t he deserve the slightest bit privacy?” It wasn’t like he’s standing on Sungkyu’s side and defending him, he was just stating his honest opinion.

“Nope. When you’re that bright of a star, you’re famous and you have all that people dreamt off, it’s hard to keep your private life to yourself,” Kibum told him. “That’s just the price Kibum has to pay. Not that big of a deal.” It amazed Chanyeol that what Kibum said was actually right and logical, and for once, his sunbae wasn’t that . . . yeah.

“And,” Kibum said when