“Okay, this is the S.M. Entertainment office,” Seunghwan said, braking. “You just walk through the front doors over there and talk to the woman at the desk.”

“Thank you,” Kouichi said cheerfully, while Yui nodded her appreciation. “See you later!” The manager rolled his eyes and pressed a switch, closing the car door behind them.

“Okay,” Kouichi said, dropping her smile the moment his car drove away. “Let’s do this.” Yui nodded resolutely and together, the two entered the building.

“How may I help you?” asked the head of the desk once they approached her.

“We’d like to work as language instructors,” Kouichi said a bit forcefully. “For Super Junior,” she was quick to add.

“And we’re not sasaeng fans,” Yui felt the need to throw in. “We’re merely qualified to teach in a variety of languages.” Somehow, it seemed that they were very good at eliciting the raised-eyebrow reaction from people related to S.M. Entertainment; so far everybody they had met had given them such looks, and this lady was no exception.

“What?” Kouichi said a bit defensively. “It’s true.”

“That’s not my job,” the lady said coolly. “Perhaps you’d like to speak with our CEO, Lee Sooman-nim.”

“Sure, where is he?”

The lady pointed to a long line of people waiting behind the glass door. There had to be at least fifty teenaged girls in that line alone, and through the glass, the twins could see that it extended on long past their line of vision. “You’ll have to wait over there.”

The girls’ jaws dropped. “They can’t all be here to see him!”

The secretary shrugged. “You think you’re the first to approach us with this type of request? We don’t have time to entertain the likes of you all day.”

Kouichi frowned. “So you think he does?”

“That’s not what the line is for. After you reach the front, you will be sorted into different groups, depending on your request. If you wait a few days, you might be able to obtain an audience with him.” It was evident from the lady’s tone that this was clearly impossible, and they were meant to turn back now.

Yui grit her teeth. “So then where’s the sign up list? Surely we can sign-in electronically so they know when to call us, right?”

The lady indicated a space in the far side of the room—“behind that wall,”—and as they started walking towards it, Yui snuck her hands into her bag and felt for her tools.

“Tokudaiji, Kouichi, and Tokudaiji, Yui,” the man said crisply, reading from a sheet of paper. There was a small scuffle and Yui and Kouichi finally finished pulling themselves to the beginning of the line.

“Here,” Yui cried, panting slightly, while behind her Kouichi squeezed herself past two last girls. The man glanced down disapprovingly at their disheveled state, but there was no opportunity to correct that now. They barely had time to invent and print resumes as it was.

“This way,” he said, and turned. Trying to straighten out their papers, the girls followed him into one of the back offices.

“So, he said, upon entering the office and closing the door. “You are here upon recommendation, was it?”

“Yes,” Yui said confidently. “If you look at our resumes, sir, you’ll see we were personally recommended by Super Juniors’ managers themselves.”

The man glanced down at the papers they gave him. “Well, it is not Seunghwan-sshi’s place to issue recommendations nor references for new workers…”

“But sir, he wasn’t the only one. If you would let us speak to Lee Sooman-nim…”

“Lee Sooman-nim is a very busy man,” he interrupted. “He cannot possibly entertain all the job requests that come this way.”

“He personally hired us,” Yui said, changing her mind on the spot. “But the official paperwork hasn’t been completed yet, and there was something that we had to clarify before we accepted the position—”

“I thought you were here on recommendation?” Another eyebrow raise.

“Lee Sooman-nim himself recommended us,” Yui burst out, mentally kicking herself for yet another poor lie. “If you’d just let us see him privately—”

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Without waiting for an invitation, the door opened and another young man came in, bowing regretfully as he did so.

“Sir, I’m really sorry for the intrusion,” he said sounding truly sorry. “But there is a woman outside right now, and she demands to speak with you.”

The interviewer frowned. “Can’t she wait?” he asked impatiently.

“She’s a foreigner,” the messenger whispered almost inaudibly. “And she says she wants to talk now. At least, I think that’s what she said. It was kind of hard to understand her accent.”

The man rubbed his temples. “What kind of foreigner is she? And why can’t she wait?”

“Well, she had really fancy jewelry on, and—” Before he could finish his statement, the woman in question walked in, saving him the trouble of describing her. She stood, coolly appraising the man behind the desk. She was tall, fair-skinned, and had dark brown hair and eyes to match. Her style of dress was unmistakably—

“A Russian?” Kouichi was too surprised to contain herself. Somehow seeing someone from that nationality seemed to have prompted her to change her speech, and she automatically spoke in the language most suited to the room’s newest member. The woman’s head whipped around.

“You speak russkiy?” she asked sharply, while the two men looked dumbfounded.

“We both do,” Yui answered with equal fluency. Her eyes narrowed as she carefully took in the woman’s jewels, her fine perfume, and her deliberately made-up face. She wasn’t just wealthy; she was filthy rich and confident enough to flaunt it. “What is it that you need help with?”

The woman was studying them, too, with narrowed eyes. “Have we met before?”

Kouichi seemed to have reached similar conclusions as Yui. “I don’t believe so,” she said slowly, for once seeming to think before voicing her words out loud.

“Did you just fly into Korea earlier today?”

“Excuse me, but how is this relevant? You are interrupting a private meeting,” Yui said coolly.

The woman’s eyes got even narrower and she turned to the two men again. “I had lost something on the plane earlier today,” she said heavily, barely comprehensively in Korean, “and I have reason to believe that people from this company stole it.”

The men’s’ eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and they looked to the girls for a translation. Understanding her words by reading into her accent, Yui ignored their looks and merely asked, “What is it that you lost? And how can you be sure that it was stolen by people from this company?”

“That is my business,” the woman said coolly. “No concern of yours.”

“You are accusing a company of something completely ridiculous,” Kouichi interrupted. “And as employees of the said company, we have every right to concern ourselves with this matter.”

The woman looked slightly surprised; an eyebrow rose haughtily. “You are an employee of this company?”

“Shall we call the cops to settle this?” Yui said coolly. She folded her arms. “We could very well sue for slander.”

“Not to mention trespass,” Kouichi muttered on the side.

“Can one of you please translate?” burst out the interviewer. “What the heck is going on?” Everybody ignored him.

“I’m having trouble,” the woman sneered, “believing that the daughters of the Tokudaiji clan of Japan are now affiliated with a Korean entertainment company.”

“Indeed,” Yui said lightly, her airy tone masking her true emotions. “I wonder how much money you were paid to go follow us like this. Surely you must not lead a very useful life.” The woman made an irritated movement for a moment, but like Yui, she quickly composed herself and responded with equal civility:

“At least I’m getting paid to follow a pair of worthless twins. You can hardly consider yourself better than pathetic fans.”

Kouichi stretched her hands, crackling her knuckles slightly. “Shall we take this outside?” she asked, smiling with an evil glint in her eyes. “I know a good place where we could talk.”

The tension in the room was thick enough to be sliced with a knife. Though he could not have possibly understood Kouichi’s last comment, the interviewer spoke again, this time a bit more firmly. “It appears that you two parties know each other,” he said, glancing at them back and forth. “Whatever your concerns are, they do not appear to be related to us. So please finish your discussion outside of my office.” He pointed to his door with a meaningful look on his face, so even the Russian lady understood.

Kouichi reached over and grabbed her hand before she could protest. “Sounds fine by me,” she said with gritted teeth, and then briefly switching over to Japanese, “Yui, I’ll leave you to sort everything out here.” Pulling the woman out of the office, the door closed with a loud slam.

“Be safe,” Yui said under her breath to the closed door. “She appears to have connections, too.”

There was a silence after they left, during which Yui closed her eyes and briefly brainstormed the best possible explanation for a situation she herself didn’t completely comprehend.

“It’s like this,” she finally said, as she opened her eyes. “There appears to be some misunderstanding between that Russian lady and your company. I don’t know the details,” she added, as both opened their mouths in shock. “But my sister is going to talk to her about it right now and hopefully, they can resolve it soon without any difficulty.” By which she meant her sister not getting hurt, but they weren’t to know that.

The interviewer frowned. “Your sister?”

“You mean that Russian lady was your sister?” the messenger echoed with equal incomprehension.

“Finally found you again,” Yui muttered a few hours later as she spotted Kouichi in the lobby. At this point, though the line had considerably shrunk, Yui doubted that the manager would be seeing anybody else tonight. Her meeting with him and given him enough of a headache as it was. “What on earth was that about earlier?”

Kouichi frowned. “Somehow, she knew that the flight attendant’s attempt to poison Ryeowook-san had failed. I guess she was here for a retry.”

“How did they locate him so quickly?” Yui asked, perplexed. “Especially since we already told the Tambov gang not to bother with him? Shouldn’t he have been safe for a bit longer?”

“I think we misunderstood his global popularity,” Kouichi muttered. “The kid can’t even enter a hospital without it making the news.”

“What?!”

“It was on those online forums,” she explained. “Apparently fans saw him and that other guy—Leeteuk or something—checking into the hospital. There are even some pictures of them leaving, too, but luckily no one seemed to care enough about us to photograph our faces this time around.”

“So then the Russian mafia…”

“No,” Kouichi said, and frowned. “She wasn’t working for the Tambov gang. But she had known about his whereabouts and destination long before we went to the hospital. She had followed us all the way from St. Petersburg.”

The fact that they had been tailed didn’t bother Yui so much as the fact that she hadn’t even realized it. She sat down on the bench next to her sister, trying to absorb everything. “So the Tambov gang didn’t send her, just like I asked… but then that could only leave—”

 “Chichi-ue,” Kouichi muttered darkly, and that was all she had to say.

“So we got our pictures taken with Ryeowook-san. Why is chichi-ue putting in so much effort into trying to kill him?” Yui pressed. “If we assume that the flight attendant was also sent by him, somehow; going so far as to hire multiple people to go after him—” She stopped herself and took a breath. “So what did end up happening between you and that Russian lady?”

Kouichi smiled mysteriously. “Well, let’s just say she won’t be bothering him anymore. No, not dead,” she said exasperatedly, seeing Yui’s expression. “But I won’t say I didn’t administer any substances to her that will significantly alter her recent memories. By the time she wakes up and is lucid again, she should already be on her way back to Germany.”

“Germany?”

Kouichi shrugged. “No need to have her return to chichi-ue with a failure report and a drugged brain to boot. My way, both she and Ryeowook-san actually get to live. It’s a win-win situation.”

“But are there still others?”

Kouichi understood Yui’s question. “It’s likely, isn’t it? I don’t think we’ll know exactly why he cares so much, but for now, that’ll only give us more incentive to stay close to him and his group. So how did things go after I left?”

Yui genuinely smiled. “We got the job.”

“Nice,” Kouichi grinned, giving her a small high-five. “Finally, something goes right today. But how?”

“I think after today’s incident, S.M. Entertainment realized their need to be better able to communicate with foreigners,” Yui said wryly. “Before they accidentally upset any more random Russian fans.”

“You passed her off as a fan?” Kouichi snorted at the irony.

“I said a few things,” Yui said vaguely. “In a few languages.” Kouichi snorted again. “I think they were impressed.”

“So now…?”

“They’ll contact us whenever their schedules can fit in a language lesson. We may be given as little as three days’ short notice, so we have to be flexible.”

“Easy enough. Not like we have anything else to do in Korea.”

“There is the problem of housing and commute, though… not to mention a daily change in clothes.”

Kouichi sighed. “Why did our lives seem easier before we got a legal job?”

A few days later, the girls were once again in front of the office, this time dressed in more formal clothing and carrying bags with books. Lee Sooman himself was there to greet them.

“I heard that you had resolved an issue between someone from this company and a foreigner,” he said as they bowed in greeting. “Exactly what was the nature of the problem?”

“She met one of the members while he was aboard in Russia, and there was some confusion after they parted,” Kouichi lied fluidly. “She seemed to believe that they owed her something, and thus she came here to search for them.”

The CEO shook his head in annoyance. “Crazy fans. The money some people spend…” he muttered. “I had heard something about one of the members meeting people in Russia, actually. Could she have been the one in those pictures?” Kouichi’s mouth dropped.

“How on earth did that go viral?” Yui asked in disbelief. “No, it was nothing like that. It was just a small misunderstanding of some sort. It’s okay. We happen to speak Russian, so we were able to get that all under control.”

Lee Sooman seemed impressed enough. “Super Junior has many foreign fans,” he said reflectively. “In fact, they are going on a world tour soon. We are thinking of including Russia as one of our stops, so perhaps when that time comes, you two can teach them some useful phrases.”

“Sounds good,” Yui said agreeably, and Kouichi nodded.

“Now, we are also planning on expanding into the Japanese market more sometime in the future, so for the time being, I want you to focus on Japanese as your main language of instruction.”

Yui nodded. “Japanese is our native language, actually.”

Lee Sooman raised an eyebrow and then nodded approvingly. “Good. Their managers tell me that some of the boys have some free time tonight, so I want you to teach them then.” He handed them some packet of papers, all of them containing rows and columns and a lot of colorful boxes at random intervals. Noticing the time frames and names listed at the top and sides, Yui realized it was a schedule of sorts. She flipped through some of the papers and her eyes widened.

“These schedules start at—”

“You’ll notice that sometimes, your hours are a bit weird,” Lee Sooman said carelessly. “That’s normal. And when we go abroad, you’ll have to accommodate the boys’ various activities as well.”

“Okay,” Kouichi said confidently, though her gaze wavered as she noted Yui’s incredulous facial expression.

 Lee Sooman waved his hand dismissively. “All of it is already stated in your contract, but I felt the need to remind you. Most teachers quit very early on, but since I was given a very positive recommendation by several of my colleagues, I’m going to give you two a chance. I hope you will be able to teach our boys well.”

“Yessir,” Yui said contritely, and then they bowed again in parting.

A ‘very positive recommendation’? Kouichi mouthed in disbelief. Who the heck did he talk to?

 “Okay, first schedule starts today, at 5:00PM at the dormitory,” Kouichi read from the schedule. She frowned. “We’re homeschooling them?”

“Where do they live?”

“I dunno. But hey, I bet he knows. Let’s just hitch a ride with him,” Kouichi said brightly, pointing to the figure of Seunghwan the manager coming up the stairs leading to the hallway. “Hey! Hyung!”

The man looked up, and then seemed to regret doing so. “What did you just call me?”

“I’m sorry; would ‘ahjusshi’ have been better?” Kouichi asked innocently.

“Are you going back to the dorms now?” Yui called from behind. “We have to be there soon, but we don’t know where to go.”

He frowned. “Females aren’t allowed into the Super Junior dorms. I know that as fans, it must be hard for you to resist, but—”

Kouichi rolled her eyes. “Who said we’re fans? We’re their teachers now!”

“Exactly. That’s why you shouldn’t—” then he seemed to register her words.
“Excuse me? You’re their what? How on earth did you manage to get a job here?”

Yui couldn’t very well explain to him that she had hacked his, along with a few others’, emails in order to persuade the CEO to hire them, so she settled for “Because… we are very charismatic?” He nearly stumbled.

“But still—! What are you teaching them? Or rather, why are you teaching them?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Girls like you should be in school, not running around with Korea’s national stars.”

“It says here that we’re supposed to be giving them Japanese lessons in their living room,” Yui read off the schedules, choosing to ignore his last comment.

Unconvinced, he took the papers from her, and then stared. “Who wrote this timetable? The managers are the ones who are supposed to be in charge of things like this.”

Yui shrugged. All she did was hack his email, not create the schedules.

 Just then, another door opened, and two young men came rushing out. “Ah, hyung!” one of them called out, quickly wiping his brow with a towel that was draped across his shoulders. His hair was an orange-brown color, and he was wearing a T-shirt that hung damp from his body. “We’re so sorry! Did you wait long? Choreo practice ran late today and that’s why we—” He stopped, seeing the two girls. They quickly bowed, and he and the other returned their greeting.

“I don’t believe it,” Yui heard Kouichi mutter under her breath, “how can someone completely covered in sweat still be so good-looking?” Yui then noticed that she was referring to the second man, who was none other than Ryeowook.

He also seemed to recognize them at the same time and gave a surprised, but cheerful, wave. “Annyeong! It’s been a while. Are you working here now?”

His friend looked shocked by his use of banmal. “Ryeowook-ah,” he asked, “you know them?”

“Oh right—introductions,” Ryeowook laughed. “Hyung, meet Yui-sshi and Kouichi-sshi, and… wait,” he said, suddenly seeming to realize something, “Umm, did we ever go over each others’ last names?”

The other rolled his eyes before playfully scolding his friend. “Goodness, Ryeowook. Kyuhyun is the rude magnae I’d expect to start using banmal before he even knows the other person’s full name, not you. You’re supposed to be above that.”

“We’re Tokudaiji Yui and Kouichi,” Yui said quickly, indicating who was who. Both girls bowed again. “Nice to meet you, uh…?”

“I’m Super Junior’s Sungmin,” the first man said, and then grinned. “It’s been a while since I was last unrecognized around here. It’s kind of refreshing, actually.” Both members laughed.

“Sorry,” Yui said apologetically, while Kouichi shrugged awkwardly.

The manager cleared his throat. “Now that introductions are over, we have another schedule to meet. If you two can please get moving…”

“We’re coming with you, right?” Kouichi asked, giving him a pointed look. “She looked at his watch as they all started walking down the stairs. “It’s 5:00 now.”

“Oh, right!” Sungmin said, pulling out a schedule of his own. “It says that I have a Japanese lesson right now…”

“That would be with us,” Yui said brightly. “We’re your new language instructors. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.”

“Kochira koso yoroshiku onegaishimasu,” Sungmin returned fluidly, surprising them both. “I know a bit of Japanese already,” he added shyly.

“Advanced lessons for you, then,” Yui improvised, while Kouichi gave him a sideways glance. “How much can you speak?”

“I’ve studied Japanese for a few years,” he explained. “But Ryeowookkie here could use some more help,” he added, giving his companion a playful nudge on the shoulder. Kouichi perked up with interest.

“So I guess the members are all at different levels,” Yui mused. “How are we going to do this?”

“Not everybody is free at the same time,” Kouichi noted from Ryeowook’s side, as she glanced over at his schedule. “It looks like you don’t have a lesson scheduled until three days from now.” She looked slightly disappointed.

“It’s okay,” Ryeowook assured her. “I’m sure teaching Sungmin-hyung will be more than enough. He’s really a handful!”

For that, he got another playful whack on the head. “Hey! Is that how you respect your hyungs?” Sungmin said with mock-seriousness. “You’re giving our teachers a bad impression!”

They got into the car. “Hmm,” Yui mused, “maybe we should split up their schedules. I don’t think there’s a point in both of us being teachers at the same time, especially since they’re all free at random hours.” She gave her sister a meaningful glance. It’ll be easier to keep an eye on Ryeowook this way. “I can take the first shift tonight.”

“I’ll take the next one,” Kouichi offered quickly, noting whose it was.

Ryeowook beamed. “Sensei, onegaishimasu!” he said, imitating Sungmin’s earlier phrase. Kouichi’s face flushed with happiness.

Yui nodded, keeping her amusement out of her face. “Well, we shall look forward to working with you.”

Four mouths then smiled, while the last merely sighed for the umpteenth time in resignation.