“Siwon-hyung won’t be able to make it today,” Kyuhyun said apologetically during one of their later classes. It was two days after the end of Super Show 4. “Something came last minute—I think his manager accidentally confused his schedule with somebody else’s.”

“That’s fine,” Yui assured him, making another mental note. “There’s so many of you guys, I can’t say I’m too surprised.”

The others laughed appreciatively. “His manager said that he’d contact you at a later hour to catch up,” Yesung added, “If that’s okay with you.” 

“We’ll be here all day,” Yui said truthfully. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to catch onto her literal meaning, and the rest of the lesson proceeded without any difficulty.

After it was over, Yesung excused himself and made to leave the dorm.

“Hyung, don’t forget to tell your manager where you’re going,” Kyuhyun called out in reminder.

“It’s fine—I’m only going to ‘Handel and Gretel’; he already knows,” Yesung returned right before the door closed. “See you later! And thank you again, Yui-sensei!”

Yui flushed at the title before turning to Kyuhyun. “What’s ‘Handel and Gretel’?”

Kyuhyun gave her a sideways glance. “It’s the name of the café his parents run,” he explained. “He goes there sometimes during his time off to help them out. They have a lot of business,” he said slightly proudly.

“Oh…” at the mention of parents, Yui was reminded of her own.

Kyuhyun seemed to notice. “Do you miss your family?” he asked. “Do you get to visit them often?”

“Not really,” Yui said ambiguously. “It’s been a while since I last saw my parents in person.”

He nodded, though she knew it was impossible for him to completely understand her words. “Sometimes, it’s hard to make time to see them,” he said reflectively. “Is it because they live far away?”

“In Japan,” she said simply.

“So then what brought you to Korea?”

“Working for you guys,” she joked, her words more truthful than he could have suspected.

“Did you start out as a trainee here?” he asked, glancing at her up and down. “You look about the correct age.”

“No, never,” she said seriously. “I was a trainee, but not here, and definitely not in this field.”

He looked interested. “Please do elaborate.” He stretched out his legs comfortably on the couch. Over the course of their lessons, his shyness had gradually decreased; underneath his initial hesitant exterior, Yui thought she saw a personality that bordered somewhere between witty and playfully rebellious. 

Yui smiled slightly darkly. “Maybe next time,” she said. “For now, suffice it to say that beyond language, I have other skills, too.”

“Sensei, could you be referring to Starcraft?” he suddenly asked eagerly, bouncing off the couch. “Do you play?”

Yui laughed, amused. “That might be closer to Kouichi’s style.”

“Kouichi?—San,” he quickly corrected himself.

“The other language teacher,” Yui explained, opting to refer to her sister on a more vague level. “Perhaps you two haven’t met yet.” Come to think of it, Yui was pretty sure they hadn’t, given how she had been Kyuhyun’s only instructor so far. The others varied, depending on everybody’s schedules.

“Ah, it’s pretty late. I should get going. Next time, I’ll bring Kouichi-san over to play Starcraft with you, okay?”

He looked briefly disappointed, but then eagerly nodded. Really, Yui mused as she closed the door and headed for the elevators, despite their physical exteriors, Super Junior were more like children than young men.

Their happily innocent outlook on life was quite endearing to witness, she thought vaguely, as she stepped out from the warm lighted building and headed into the night.

 “Oh, you’re the one teaching us today,” was Leeteuk’s amused comment as Yui walked in.

“I’m sorry?”

The leader merely pointed to the room’s other student with a droll smile. “Ryeowook-sshi’s here today, too, remember?”

Yui was nonplussed. “Uh, yes?” Of course she remembered. Kouichi hadn’t been too happy about giving up her chance to tutor Ryeowook today, and had spent the whole morning making that clear. But a job was a job, and being Ryeowook’s bodyguard overrode being his Japanese language tutor.

“Just come back with more leads,” Yui had ordered her, and for once Kouichi had silently agreed, acquiescing to Yui’s authority as the older sister.

Leeteuk merely smirked and said nothing more on the topic. Instead, he commented aloud, “You and Kouichi-san have very different teaching styles, you know?”

Yui shrugged. They weren’t even trained as teachers to start with; adding to their unprofessionalism was the fact that they didn’t really spend much time preparing the lessons in advance, either. Kouichi had deemed stalking the mafia more important, and Yui, being slightly more socially apt than her sister, was thus left with the job of winging Japanese language lessons and taking the consequences that inevitably that came with it.

“We’re different people,” she said neutrally. “Whose style do you prefer more?”

“I think both of your styles are good,” Ryeowook said seriously, not seeming to understand that Leeteuk was jibing their teacher. “You alternate between using the textbook and occasionally deviating away from it, and Kouichi-san simply teaches us curse words and all sorts of phrases we could use if we got into arguments.” Yui snorted, unsurprised. “Both styles are very practical.”

“Wait, what?” Leeteuk demanded. “She’s never taught me any curse words!”

Yui raised an eyebrow. “And which words are you interested in learning, leader-sama?” He fell back, beaten. Yui grinned. Score: Yui, 1, Leeteuk 0.

“Leeteuk-san, it looks like you’ll be out of the country for ten days starting tomorrow,” Yui continued, glancing over at the spare schedules. “I guess that means you’ll have to learn ten times as much today.” She then laughed at his indignant squawk. “Thus, your first lesson of the day: Don’t mess with your language teacher.”

“Aw, but hyung is busy,” Ryeowook protested compassionately. “Cut him some slack. Please?” He pouted.

His aegyo was devastating. It’s a good thing Kouichi’s not teaching today’s lesson, Yui thought, as she struggled to keep a straight face.

Something had been bothering Yui lately. On one of their days off, she decided to head to the nearby library, while Kouichi traveled to the countryside to visit yet another gravesite.

It didn’t take her too long to hack into the managers’ emails and online documents, and within minutes, she was browsing through correspondences dating through the last few weeks.

She wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for, but soon several interesting exchanges caught her eye.

Date: November 11^th. 14:03.

The Japanese lessons will begin today. The location has been determined and printed.

Date: November 12^th. 9:06.

Who chose their dorms to be the classroom location? Why aren’t they being taught at the S.M. Office?

12:45. CEO Lee Sooman-nim decided that. Don’t question his decision.

15:54. That’s our job… I’m going to have a talk with him about this.

17:29. Don’t. Unless you want to get fired?

The last email had been deleted.

Date: November 16^h. 7:45.

Leeteuk and Eunhyuk told me yesterday that they accidentally had a Japanese lesson scheduled the night before. Did you put that in for them?

11:38. Of course I didn’t. You’re their manager, hyung.

12:50. Strange. I don’t remember adding that into their day...

12:56. Okay. Sorry about that.

Surprisingly, the last two emails of that exchange, both of which were sent from the same manager, had also been deleted. However, time stamps of deletion were several hours apart.

But the rest of the conversation that remained in the inbox made perfect sense.

Date: November 22md.

Hyung, Siwon wasn’t able to make his lesson today. He had a conflicting schedule. Why was he put in today’s lesson with Kyuhyun and Yesung?

Without being completely aware of what she was doing, Yui found herself hacking deeper and deeper as she delved into their archived or erased emails, attempting to make sense of a progressively confusing conversation, most of which was buried in online recycle spaces that were not easy to uncover.

But the job of recovery shouldn’t even have been possible in the first place.

I didn’t write that. What is going on?

Hyung, I said no such thing. If you check our previous emails…

Why are you scheduling lessons during this time? They need time to rest and practice for their concert tour.

Are you ignoring my emails?

One who chases after two hares won’t catch even one.

Did you change your number? Why haven’t you been texting me?

I can’t find the file. What are you talking about?

They’re still holding lessons in the dorms?

Yui stopped and rubbed her eyes. All of these emails had been deleted. Recovering them wasn’t easy, but still, something wasn’t right. Even if she moved them back into the correct inboxes, the conversations between the managers still made no sense.

It almost seemed that half the time, they had no idea what the other person was saying. It was as if the emails didn’t even make it to the recipients—which was nearly impossible, given the Internet’s normal reliability: Even erased emails should make it to the correct inboxes, regardless of what the original sender did with his copy. After all, a sent email could not be retracted.

Also, the way it was deleted—something was a bit messy about the process, she thought, as she squinted at the lines of code. Not to mention that they had been removed from all the of managers’ accounts, as if they had all made some group decision to erase certain parts of their correspondence.

A bit coincidental, wasn’t it?

“Something’s not right…” she said out loud.

The boys weren’t back from their previous schedules yet, so the twins were left standing outside their dorm entrance. Still bothered by her findings from the day before, Yui started pacing as she continued to silently brainstormed potential explanations; next to her, Kouichi, who had been promptly informed and was now also on the lookout, did the same.

“Hey. What are you girls doing here?” Startled, both looked up to see a young man with a buzz cut staring at them strangely, having just come up from the stairwell. “This place is off-limits! Gah, you sasaeng fans,” he groaned. “Don’t you have proper homes to go to? How did you get past the guard?”

“You… called us girls?” Kouichi asked, surprised.

He snorted. “What, are you supposed to be a guy? Is that the newest trick fans play now?”

Despite herself, Kouichi smiled. “You’re the first person to not mistaken me for one. And I’m not a fan.”

“Who are you?” Yui asked a bit bluntly. “I thought this floor was occupied only by Super Junior members.”

He gave them a long stare. “Are you insulting me?” he asked in disbelief. “I live here.” The girls gaped at him. “Wow, you guys are the most clueless fans I’ve ever met.”

“I don’t remember giving you any Japanese lessons,” Yui weakly. “And I was pretty sure I’d met everybody by now…”

He laughed pithily. “The members are getting language lessons now? Wow, so much has changed since I started my public service.” Yui raised her eyebrows at Kouichi, who shrugged with equal incomprehension.

“So you’re a member, too?” Kouichi asked incredulously.

“Indeed I am. And it’s a good thing you’ve only showed up just now—who knows, if you had been here three months ago, clueless ‘fans’ like you would have probably been asking me what I was doing here.” As he said this, he pointed to his hair, and Kouichi’s mouth dropped open. “Ah! I can’t believe it,” he exclaimed, stretching his arms, “I actually met another girl less girly than me. I had thought Amber from f(x) was just an exception.”

“There is definitely something wrong with this world,” Yui muttered, which he overheard. He gave a laugh.

“I’d say. And it’s most certainly not me!”

By the time Eunhyuk and the others finally returned to the dorm from their previous choreography practice, they were surprised to find the twins already inside.

“I’m sorry we’re late,” Eunhyuk apologized, half-bowing and looking confused, as if he wasn’t sure if he should be the one bowing in his own home. Behind him, Kyuhyun and Sungmin, the other two scheduled for a lesson today, expressed similar sentiments.

“How did they get in?” Yui heard Sungmin ask Kyuhyun.

“Buzz-cut-hyung,” Kouichi answered carelessly from the couch where she was lounging, pointing in the vague direction of Heechul’s room. Though he had eventually introduced himself, Kouichi had already taken to calling him her own variation of his name, and it was sticking.

For a second, the members looked unsure at whom Kouichi was referring to. Then one by one, recognition dawned onto their faces and they broke out into laughter.

“Buzz-cut,” Sungmin choked out between giggles.

“Hyung?” Eunhyuk exclaimed, unable to hide his amusement. “You called him your hyung?”

“No fair,” Kyuhyun protested. “How come you get to call Heechul-hyung your hyung so soon? He wouldn’t let me do that for months!”

“Um, Kyuhyun? That’s not the problem here,” Eunhyuk said with a straight face.

“Buzz-cut-hyung,” Sungmin was still laughing as he went to the kitchen to get some drinks. “I like that.” Yui glanced over at her sister to see how she was taking this, and was slightly surprised to see Kouichi staring at Sungmin with a slightly intense look on her face. Then the moment passed and Kouichi’s face cleared. “Well,” she said, shrugging carelessly, “he was asking for it, so…”

Kyuhyun shook his head in disbelief at the audacity Kouichi was showing towards his hyung, while Eunhyuk merely chortled, apparently already used to it.

“What’s this?” Kouichi suddenly asked, sitting up from the couch. She was studying a photo placed on the mantle. “Who are all of these hippies sporting these crazy colorful hairstyles?”

“That’s us,” Eunhyuk said graciously. “From our first album, Twins. Back in 2005.”

“Not me,” Kyuhyun interjected.

Kouchi was counting all the people in the photo. “Ten, eleven, twelve…Why are there so many of you?!”

“Thirteen of us now,” Kyuhyun corrected.

“No, I definitely count twelve right here,” Kouichi insisted. “And I thought you guys said that Super Junior was a boy band.”

“We are,” Kyuhyun argued for the third time.

“Then why is this girl in your picture?” Kouichi asked, pointing at a particular person with long curly red hair. “She almost looks like Ryeowook, except prettier and with nicer bone structure.”

 “That’s… Heechul-hyung,” Eunhyuk explained. He looked like he didn’t know whether to be amused or appalled, and compromised by twitching his mouth in both directions in something that was probably a smile. “He’s always had his own eccentric style, even to this very day.”

“….oh.” Well, at least now the twins could see what said guy had meant by his earlier comments.

Yui opened her bag to get started on the lesson, and immediately noticed a problem. “Um, Kouichi? Did you bring the textbook?”

Her sister rolled her eyes. “You think I actually follow that thing?”

“Oh snap,” Sungmin mocked, having returned from the kitchen with drinks in his hand. “Senseis are unprepared today.” He passed around bottles of water and juice.

“Come to think of it, this is the first time you two have taught together, isn’t it?” Eunhyuk remarked as he took one. “How are you going to coordinate that?”

“Good point,” Yui muttered to Kouichi. “Any ideas?”

Kouichi shrugged, opening her bottle. “I always just wing it.”

“That’s not something you want to admit in front of your students,” Sungmin called out, though he himself didn’t seem particularly bothered.

Kouichi yawned. “Well, is there anything in particular you want to learn today?”

“You always start with that line,” Eunhyuk reminded her.

“What’s that?” Yui asked, noticing Kyuhyun, who hadn’t grabbed a drink, pull out a small notebook. “Is that… Chinese?”

He gave a small smile. “We’re going to Taiwan for a concert in two days, and then we’re going to Singapore to attend the MAMA, so I figured I should use this time to brush up on my Mandarin.”

“MAMA?”

“Mnet Asian Music Awards,” he explained. “We were nominated in some of the categories, so Leeteuk-hyung said I should prepare an acceptance speech just in case we win. I want to say it in Chinese.”

She looked over more closely at his notebook. In it, he had already written a few words in pinyin, most of which were legible or semantically understandable. “Wo men yi huo,” here she squinted a bit, “uh, can’t read the next two words… xian zai yi yang nu li. Xi wang neng gen da jia yong yuan zai yi qi. Xi wang yong yuan zhi chi wo men. Xie xie da jia!” Yui read. He looked surprised by her perfect accent. For her part, she was impressed, too. “In light of that, would you like to learn Mandarin today?”

He looked suddenly troubled. “I didn’t mean—it’s fine, I mean, I’m here to learn Japanese, so—”

“Ni fang xin ba,” she laughed, putting her hand on his shoulder to stop his flustered rambling. “Relax. We can be Mandarin teachers, too.”

“Zhong wen xiang chi fan yi yang—” Eunhyuk eagerly interjected. This was then succeeded by a weaker follow-through: “…um…”

“Jian dan,” Kyuhyun supplied helpfully. “You used that phrase all the time when we were in Taiwan.”

“You believe that?” Kouichi asked, amused. “That ‘Chinese is as easy as eating’?”

Glancing back and forth between the twins, Sungmin let out a low whistle in admiration. “Exactly how many languages do you speak?”