On the day before their scheduled departure for Osaka, the boys were spending the whole day at the S.M. Entertainment building. Mostly confined in the various practice rooms, they alternated between working on choreography, vocals, fine-tuning their performance in general. After getting explicit permission from the managers, Yui and Kouichi had been allowed to drop in and preview their show. At the moment, they were watching Donghae and Eunhyuk dance and sing to a rather interesting song.

“Those two boys probably used the word ‘oppa’ in that one song more times than I will ever use it in my entire life,” Kouichi commented, raising her eyebrows as she watched the performance. “And what’s with the ketchup-and-mustard outfits? What are they, hotdog condiments?”

“But this one sounds nice,” Yui said, closing her eyes. The two hotdog condiments had spontaneously burst into ballad, and Yui found herself swaying with the music.

“I wanna love you; I can’t live without you…”

She opened her eyes again as the singing abruptly stopped. “Hey—I liked that one!”

“Sorry,” Eunhyuk laughed. “You’ll have to wait until the concert to hear the rest.”

“But if you liked the other song, it’s our future digital single,” Donghae added with a wink. “It comes out on December 16^th.”

“A computer hacker buying a digital single. Oh, the irony,” Kouichi muttered, as Yui blushed and shot her a side look. Luckily, the two boys didn’t seem to hear her comment, as Leeteuk suddenly entered the practice room.

“Mr. Simple in five minutes, practice room twelve,” he was calling out, before turning to the twins. “Oh, you’re here,” he smirked. “Ryeowook’s in practice room three, in case you were wondering.” The last statement was undeniably directed towards Kouichi.

“Shut up,” Kouichi snapped.

“Yup, definitely no love there,” Yui muttered under her breath. She had no idea where Sungmin got the impression.

“We should get going, then,” Eunhyuk said, taking the moment to wipe his brow. “Why don’t you come with us? You’ll get to see a free live performance from the whole group.”

“Why not?” Yui agreed, as Kouichi darted ahead and turned left. Following behind them, Leeteuk laughed. “Kouichi-ah, practice room twelve is on your right, not left. The rooms are numbered are in ascending order.”

“Shut up,” Kouichi snapped again, as she crossed back into their view. And then her face instantly cleared, as she disappeared from the doorway. “Hi, Ryeowook-hyung!”

Yui and the boys stared as Leeteuk grabbed the walls and guffawed.

“Wow,” Yui said over an hour later, awed. “They’re not bad at all. Everyone’s really in step…”

“He messed up,” Kouichi noticed, pointing to Leeteuk. Apparently the dancer instructor had noticed as well, as he stopped the song and made everybody start all over from the beginning. “Fail moment, leader-sama.”

The girls watched as the boys danced and sang the same song in perfect synchronization for what seemed like the twentieth time in a row.

“You know… they’re pretty good,” Yui commented, her eyes glued on the nine moving bodies in the room. “I really like their dancing style. I can’t believe we’ve been their language teachers for over a month and didn’t even know what kind of band they were.”

Even Kouichi had to agree. “Yeah…”

Next to them, the door suddenly opened and a few tall and pretty girls entered the room. The twins bowed to them in greeting, which they returned courteously.

“Ah, f(x) is here,” one of the directors said. “Let’s switch gears. Five minute break for everyone!”

Yui handed the members their water bottles as Kouichi eyed the room’s newcomers suspiciously. After exchanging greetings with them, Leeteuk came over to the twins.

“I forgot to mention earlier—I finally saw the videos the other day,” Leeteuk smirked, taking the water bottle from Yui with a thank you. “You make a fun drunk, Kouichi.”

“Huh?” she asked, nonplussed. “What videos?”

Uh-oh, Yui thought. She glanced over at Yesung, who was going busy talking to one of the staff about some part of the choreography.

“‘Ryeowook-ah, I love you,’” Leeteuk mimicked, barely suppressing his grin. “Kudos to you on your courage. Then again, maybe that was just drunken inhibition...”

“What kind of nonsense are you sprouting?” asked Kouichi, still completely clueless. “Is that your weird version of a love confession?”

Leeteuk sighed dramatically. “It’s no fun making fun of you if you don’t even realize you’re being made fun of. Let’s try again.” He raised his voice an octave. “Ryeowook-ahhh…”

“What was that?” Ryeowook asked innocently, seeming to randomly appear out of the thin air. “Did you just inhale helium, Leeteuk-hyung?”

Kouichi pointed and snickered. Leeteuk merely rolled his eyes at her but maturely stopped, clearly choosing to spare her pride in front of the object of her affections.

Two of the other girls in the room now approached them, smiling shyly.

“Hi, Sulli-sshi, Krystal-sshi,” Leeteuk said politely, completely changing his attitude. Kouichi rolled her eyes. The girls smiled and bowed, exchanging their greetings, before turning to the twins. 

“Oppa,” one of the girls said, smiling timidly at Kouichi, “Are you a trainee here?” 

Kouichi looked around wildly for a moment, confused, before Leeteuk punched her shoulder. “She’s talking to you.” 

“Wait…did you just call me ‘oppa’?” Kouichi asked. The girl looked confused, but nodded. As Kouichi groaned and smacked her forehead, Leeteuk descended to the ground, laughing his head off. 

“What’s wrong with Leeteuk-oppa?” asked the other girl. 
“He’s being stupid,” Kouichi replied.

Smirking, Leeteuk finally composed himself and picked himself off the floor. He clapped her on the back, causing her to jump. “Kouichi-ah, a love triangle?”

Sulli and Krystal raised their eyes in shock, while Ryeowook also looked interested. “Ooh, with whom?” he asked excitedly.

Kouichi’s eyes shot daggers at Leeteuk, who, if possible, was actually smirking even more now.

“Kouichi-ah,” he said, as the choreographer called the f(x) girls away to practice a song with Donghae, Eunhyuk and Shindong, “You forgot to remove your tag.”

Instantly comprehending his meaning, Kouichi flinched and her hand shot up to her collar.

“Ryeowook-ah, why don’t you remove it for her?” Leeteuk suggested, the corners of his mouth twitching as he struggled to keep a straight face.

“Wait—”

“Okay,” Ryeowook said obediently, as his hands reached up to touch Kouchi’s shirt. “Just hold still for a moment.”

“Um, I don’t think you should do that,” Yui interrupted. All eyes turned to her in surprise; it appeared that they had forgotten she was still in their midst.

She shrugged. “We were thinking of returning it anyway. Right, Kouichi?”

“Yeah,” Kouichi said agreeably. “I don’t particularly like this one.” She her cardigan hesitantly.

Leeteuk raised his eyebrows. “But it actually looks good on you. You know Ryeowook likes pretty girls, right?”

“Hyung, what are you saying?” Ryeowook cried, embarrassed. “What does that have to do with anything?” No one answered him.

“We’re leaving for Osaka tomorrow at 6am sharp,” Leeteuk informed the twins instead. “Don’t forget to meet us in front of the dorms then. We’re going to be staying in Osaka until the end of January, so pack accordingly.”

“We understand,” Yui reassured him, while Kouichi stared in a different direction.           

“Leader-sama—”

“Do you know where we’ll all be staying? In relation to each other,” Yui asked.

“My guess is probably within walking distance,” Leeteuk replied. “For ease of transportation purposes.”

“I guess that makes sense. Your schedules will probably be pretty packed…”

“Half the time, we don’t even find out about some of them until the morning of. There are just too many to remember—”

“LEETEUK-AH!”

“Yah!” He turned to Kouichi. “Respect! You have to address me respectfully!”

Apparently he didn’t realize she had been using “leader-sama” as a joke.

In response, Kouichi jabbed her finger over her shoulder. “They’re calling for you.” On the other side of the room, the f(x) girls, along with Donghae, Eunhyuk, and Shindong were watching the trio with impatient looks on their faces.

“Oops,” Leeteuk said.

“That’s coincidentally the name of the song you’re supposed to be practicing right now,” quipped Kyuhyun as he walked over, while Leeteuk dashed off with apologies. He smirked at Kouichi. “Nice job, by the way. ‘Leeteuk-ah’? Even I never had the nerve.”

Kouichi matched his smirk. “Where do you think I got the idea from? Your manners are quite infamous, Kyuhyun-sshi.”

The grin still hadn’t left his face. “Seems like you’d be an even more impudent magnae than me.”

“Nah, you’re hard to top,” Kouichi retorted. And then—“Hey! Is that any way to talk to your teacher?”

Kyuhyun laughed. “If I recall correctly, you were technically never my teacher.”

“Not true,” Kouichi pointed out. “Remember that time when you were learning those Chinese phrase for MAMA?”

“Yui-san was the one who taught me,” he countered her. “You were too busy laughing at Eunhyuk-hyung and making fun of his Chinese.”

“Yours is pretty bad, too,” she retorted.

“My fans would disagree,” he said smugly.

Yui had been silently watching them banter back and forth. “When did you two become so close?”

Kouichi shrugged while Kyuhyun laughed. “I saw Leeteuk watching some video the other day. He kept pausing and pointing and laughing hysterically.” He paused, looking at Kouichi. “You were in it.” Another pause. “And I was, too, now that I think about it.”

“I still don’t get what video you’re talking about,” Kouichi said, completely nonplussed. “Since when did we shoot videos together?”

Yui understood his reference. “Oh…um.”

Kyuhyun then turned to her. “Um, I’m sorry about that,” he mumbled, running his hands through his hair. “When I, um—”

“It’s okay,” Yui said, reddening slightly. “If you’re talking about when you leaned on my shoulder—”

“Yeah—”

“Wait, am I missing something here?” Kouichi demanded. “You touched my sister? Do I have to kill you now?”

“You can’t kill your own student,” he responded cheekily. “Your paycheck would get slashed.”

She opened again to answer him, but then the music in the background suddenly stopped. “Super Junior M, Perfection, let’s go!” yelled one of the staff.

“That’s my cue,” Kyuhyun said cheerfully. “See you later, sensei.” He smirked at Kouichi and stuck out his tongue, though his smile softened a little when his gaze met Yui’s. Then he turned and ran to rejoin another dance formation as the music started up again.

“Like leader, like magnae,” Kouichi snorted over the sound of the electronic beats. “Why are they so obnoxious? Do you think they know I like Ryeowook-san?”

“That would depend on their perception of that video,” Yui commented wryly. “The one Yesung-san filmed during your drinking night with the members.”

Kouichi smacked her face with her palm. “Do I even want to know what I said?”

“You and Ryeowook-san mutually confessed to each other,” Yui supplied helpfully. “Nothing else of interest really happened.”

Kouichi exhaled. “I’ll have to ask Yesung-san if I can take a look at it sometime.”

“To destroy all the evidence of that moment?”

“No,” Kouichi grinned. “Just to make sure it really happened.”

That evening, after getting off the bus that stopped in front of a small plaza, the twins entered the local gym, as was their custom over the last few weeks. Exchanging greetings with the local receptionists, who for some reason seemed unnaturally agitated, they headed towards the locker rooms.

They walked through the main lobby and entered one of the recreation rooms unhindered. Due to their constant presence, almost all the staff assumed that they were VIP members, and no one reasoned their constant presence as being anything beyond an avid desire to work out.

“You shower first,” Yui told her sister, as she sat down in one of the sofas with a pen and paper. “I’ll get started on our packing list.”

“We should’ve done this sooner, shouldn’t we?” Kouichi asked rhetorically, looking around the room void of their belongings. “We don’t even have suitcases yet.”

Yui reached over for the remote and the radio system, allowing the catchy music to fill the background. “We can pick them up tomorrow morning, as we’re returning your cardigan.”

At the reminder, Kouichi it again. There was no mirror in the room, so she resorted to staring through her sister’s dark brown eyes. “Do you think he meant it?”

Yui immediately understood the context. “You mean Leeteuk-san’s comment?”

Kouichi carefully removed it with a sigh. Underneath, she was wearing a white tank top. “But it was too girly, I suppose.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty,” Yui said quietly.

Both remained silent as a rather romantic song filled the air.

There is no other like you.

When I look around, they’re all just the same.

Where can I find a good person like you?

A good heart like you, a good gift like you…

“Where, indeed,” Kouichi asked, smiling wryly. “Say, don’t those voices sound kind of familiar?” She had turned around, her back facing Yui, and was busy folding up the cardigan.

Yui stared at her exposed lower neck with sadness. “Do you miss being a girl?”

“Huh?” Kouichi turned around in surprise. Perhaps it was due to her pure white tank top in place of her usual dark and rugged clothing, or maybe it was the fact that they were alone and she felt safe dropping her guard, but during that fleeting moment, Kouichi became completely unrecognizable. Void of the usual worry creases in her brow or the piercing glare of extreme concentration and calculation, Yui had a sudden vision of who her sister used to be, could have been, and would never be again.

In response, Yui merely shook her head and offered a small smile, blinking the vision away. “It’s nothing. It’s just that whenever I see your tattoo—”

She knew Kouichi understood which one she was talking about. Both twins had a small tattoo on their left shoulder blades: It was one of a single White Egret Orchid, with the head of the flower pointing towards the direction of the heart. Written in an arc spanning across the wings was the small inscription que patet orbis—“as far as the world extends.” It was the Tokudaiji family crest and motto. However, Kouichi also had another tattoo, located at the base of her neck, and it was this one her hand now unconsciously .

“No,” she eventually answered. “I don’t miss being a girl. If that’s what I have to sacrifice in order to bring him back to life, then I’ll gladly be a boy forever.”

Yui bowed her head, her hair covering her face. With her eyes closed, she heard her sister’s footsteps walk away. There was the sound of the door being opened. Then—

“Siwon-hyung?!”

Yui’s eyes flew open and her head snapped back up. Kouichi was standing at the doorway, one hand still on the doorknob. Beyond the frame stood none other than Siwon, dressed in workout clothes, who looked equally surprised to see them.

“What are you doing here….?”

“Kouichi-sshi? And Yui-sshi?” Siwon asked blankly. Then he seemed to note what she was wearing—or not wearing—and turned away in slight embarrassment. Sleeveless Kouichi wasn’t a sight he was used to seeing.

“What are you doing here?” Kouichi blurted out, waving her finger in something between confusion and accusation. “Y-you work out at the gym?”

It was a stupid question to ask Super Junior’s model and representation of the perfect male body. Siwon raised an eyebrow.

“…right. Never mind that last question,” Kouichi amended, staring at his arms. “You, um, have big muscles.”

Siwon merely looked flabbergasted. “What happened to your arms?” he asked in alarm. Yui hurriedly got off from the couch and grabbed Kouichi’s cardigan, running over to them.

Kouichi glanced at her arms, on which some old scars from her training days were still visible. “Oh, these? Uh…”

“She fell,” Yui offered unconvincingly, as she handed the cardigan back to Kouichi. As Kouichi turned around to take it, Yui saw Siwon’s eyes travel to the base of her neck, and his eyebrows shot up even higher. She hadn’t known that was possible.

“So you like to work out, too?” Siwon asked. For some reason, his facial expression was undecipherable. Yui, who was used to being able to read into people’s faces with few exceptions, found this especially worrying.

“That’s right,” Kouichi asserted, fixing her cardigan. With her right hand, she repositioned the tag so it wasn’t digging into her skin.

Look at this kid, this kid is bluffing so hard,

Can someone please stop them from bluffing?

Started again, they are being stubborn,

Stop it, Oops, Oops.

They’re sayin’ Oops, Oops.

Yui winced. The radio system was still blasting music in the background. “Sorry about that,” she muttered, running back to grab the remote. As she was busy searching for wherever she had dropped it, she heard Siwon give a faint laugh.

“So it turns out that the one who was playing all our songs was you guys, huh?”

“Your songs?” Kouichi said blankly. “You mean that weird cheesy romance song was yours?”

He turned back to her, the unreadable smile still on his face. “You know, you’ve taught us for about a month now. You’ve seen our dorms, you’ve watched our performances, you’ve even,” here he paused slightly, “seen some of us drunk.”

Yui finally found the remote and silenced the system with slight vengeance.

“But we don’t know much about you. Who are you guys, really?” He crossed his muscular arms and leaned against the doorframe slightly.

“I don’t understand your question,” Kouichi said stubbornly. “We’re your teachers, what else?”

“Teachers don’t go out for dinner with their students,” Siwon said quietly. Now Yui’s eyebrows shot up. “Sungmin-hyung and Ryeowook told me about your dinner date.”

“We went out as friends,” Yui argued. Hadn’t they?

“‘Friends,’” Siwon repeated. “Then if you don’t mind, I have a few questions to ask you. As a friend, for a friend.”

Yui didn’t understand his last statement, but before she could ask for clarification, Siwon continued, “Where do you live?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Kouichi said obstinately.

“It’s something we members have been wondering about for a while,” Siwon replied. “Daily you two show up for our lessons, and after they end, you just leave. But you’ve always refused our invitations to walk you to the building exit, or in any way send you off beyond the elevator.”

“There’s no point—”

 “At that time, I chose not to say anything about it directly. But when I asked you how you got into the building, you merely avoided my question. That’s when I first started to wonder.”

Yui thought back to the beginning of their lessons. So he had started to suspect even back then?

“And then came the night of our drinking party.” Here, Siwon paused. “How often do you buy clothes?”

Yui didn’t trust herself to answer him. She couldn’t see where he was bringing the conversation.

“Never,” Kouichi responded instead, crossing her arms over her chest. “We don’t have time to do girly things like go shopping.”

Siwon nodded thoughtfully. “You tend to wear clothing with the tags still attached.”

“That was just once!” Kouichi protested.

“At least twice,” he corrected her. “That night when you got drunk, I carried you downstairs. Your polo shirt from that day also had a tag attached to the collar.”

“I don’t see how you can draw any conclusions from that…” Yui said carefully.

“No,” he agreed. “Separately, you can’t draw conclusions from any of those statements. But when you start piecing them together…”

“You get nothing,” Kouichi said firmly. “Even if you combine all of those statements, you still get nothing.”

Siwon stared at her for so long, even Kouichi began to squirm. “I have reason to believe that you two are not quite who you appear to be, Kouichi-sshi and Yui-sshi.”

Yui registered the distant tone in his suffix usage.

Kouichi merely said nothing.

Siwon looked from one person to the other, and then sighed. “Why must you make things so difficult?” he asked sadly. “Can’t you be straight-up honest about this whole situation?”

“Siwon-sshi, you don’t know what you’re asking for,” Yui said softly.

 He shook his head. “You’re wrong.” He stood up straight, readjusting the towel that had been hanging on his shoulder. He briefly broke his gaze with them to reach for his cell-phone, and then took it out. “Do you know how helpless it can feel when your cell-phone had been hacked by some unknown person?”

Yui stifled a gasp, suddenly seeing what he was about to refer to. Even Kouichi’s eyes widened. “That time, when Sungmin-hyung—”

“Ah, you remember,” he commented. “Someone used my cell-phone to pass on the location of your whereabouts to Sungmin-hyung.”

Yui didn’t even know how to properly respond to or explain that, and could do nothing except stare at him as he continued his revelations.

“Do you know how frightening that feels? Seeing a text that you did not write listed as being sent from your phone? At first I thought maybe it was an overzealous fan trying to hack my Twitter, but then I noticed your names listed in the message.”

“I warned Sungmin-sshi to tell you to change your phone number,” Yui offered weakly. “Both of you…” As she said his name out loud, she suddenly remembered that he had already asked them to drop the ‘sshi’ suffix. But somehow, at that moment, she found she couldn’t do it.

“Yes,” Siwon agreed. “After we changed our numbers, everything seemed normal again. For a while, we even forgot about it. But with the way things have been going, especially after today, this sort of mystery can no longer continue.” He let out a breath. “This has to be cleared once and for all, before things progress any further.” Here, he switched his attention to Kouichi. She flinched under his unwavering stare.

“W-what are you looking at me for?”

“I care about Sungmin-hyung a lot,” Siwon said quietly. “I know that he had wanted to confront you about the cell-phone incident himself, but then he got too drunk.”

Yui suddenly remembered something. “That time when we called you guys while you were in the middle of rehearsal— for the M Live concert in Malaysia, wasn’t it?—Sungmin-sshi had asked—”

“—if you guys wanted a drink? Yes, that’s his style,” Siwon confirmed. “We had been discussing it beforehand. Sungmin-hyung figured the best way to ask for the meeting was through an offer to get drinks together. It was his way of being a gentleman.”

“So that’s what that was about,” Kouichi muttered. “Well, he had another chance. When he and Ryeowook-hyung took us out to eat—”

“Kouichi-sshi,” Siwon interrupted. “How do you feel about Sungmin-hyung and Ryeowook?”

She clamped shut and refused to answer.

Siwon sighed again. “A different question, then. Kouichi-sshi, what’s the history behind your tattoo? The one at the base of your neck, that reads ‘0111.’” Kouichi stiffened. “No? You won’t reveal it?”

“You’re happier not knowing,” Yui said tensely.

Siwon exhaled slowly, and then closed his eyes. “Can I be frank?”

One of us might as well be, Yui thought. The fact that Siwon had even pieced together this much was unnerving her; she still hadn’t sufficiently gotten over her shock enough to answer him.

“Truthfully, I’m a bit worried. Up until now, perhaps everything could have been overlooked. Individually, they are merely minor details or incidents, and generally I would look past them when evaluating a friendship. But look at us…

“Who are you, really?” He was staring at both of them, glancing from one pair of eyes to the other. “Who are Tokudaiji Yui and Kouichi? What kind of relationship do we really have, if we, Super Junior, cannot even answer that most basic question?”

For a long time, they were all silent, looking at each other. Then Yui took a breath.

“We are Super Junior’s Japanese language teachers,” she eventually answered, levelly returning his gaze. “That’s all we are, and that’s all our relationship ever will be. Because we have no future beyond that.”

She stood up, and Kouichi immediately followed suit. “Good-bye, Siwon-sshi. We’ll see you in the morning.” With that, she sidestepped his tall frame and headed for the lobby. As the twins passed by the receptionists, who were still excitedly whispering about being in close proximity with the Super Junior member, Yui ducked her head and walked faster. What was the concept of closeness but a merely relative term to describe a relationship’s propinquity? Whether physical or emotional, their friendship had been based on misguided perception and misplaced trust.

In the end, their relationship was completely illusionary.