"So you'll be okay with or without Min-soo?" Lucy asked as they walked through the apartment door.

Doyeon nodded. "I'm going to wait and talk to him tomorrow, when I'm calmer."

"Sounds like a good idea," Lucy said.

"Well, see you later!" Doyeon said as she headed to her room. "Thanks for coming out and listening to me!"

"No problem," Lucy called back. She went looking for Suyeon and found her in the kitchen, where she was eating ice cream straight from the carton and had stuck a straw in a bottle of soju so she could drink it more easily. "But apparently there's a problem here," Lucy said as she sat down next to Suyeon. She took the bottle of soju out of Suyeon's hand and put it down on the table. "What's wrong, Suyeon? I thought we agreed that you wouldn't try to deal with your problems this way!"

"We did," Suyeon said with a sniffle, "but I saw the story in the magazine, you were out with Doyeon and had your phone turned off, and I just didn't know how to deal."

"What story?" Lucy asked. "What magazine? What's got you so upset?"

Suyeon picked up a magazine from the far side of the table and dropped it in front of Lucy. "Here. Take a look at that."

Lucy picked up the magazine and read the page that it was open to. Her jaw dropped and her face got pale.

"Everyone!" Lucy yelled as she grabbed Suyeon's hand and dragged her toward the common room. "Come to the common room! Band meeting! Right now!"

"Is this where we are?" Elly asked as she came into the room. "Just anyone can call a band meeting now?"

"Suyeon's not in any condition to call it," Lucy snapped, "and this is super serious!"

"Okay," Elly said, raising her hands as if to fend Lucy off. "Just a little joke. Not trying to piss you off. But apparently this isn't a joking time. What's up?"

Lucy shook her head. "We need to wait for the others - I think I'll only be able to go through this once. That's why I called a band meeting."

Within just a few minutes, all the members had come into the common room and sat down, waiting to see what Lucy had to say.

Lucy stood up at the front of the room, the magazine in her hand. "People, we've got a problem," she said. She held up the magazine. "The Dispatch apparently sent a photographer out to follow me and Suyeon last weekend, and they got a shot of a brief" - she stressed the word - "brief kiss. They published pictures of us today, under the headline 'Weki Meki Lesbian Scandal'."

Doyeon snatched the magazine out of Lucy's hand and looked at the pictures. The other members crowded around her. "Oh, this is bad," Doyeon said, "this is so bad. So, so bad."

Rina looked at Suyeon. "What do we do?"

Suyeon looked up, tears running down her face. "I don't know," she said.

"First thing," Sei said, "is everyone needs to turn off their phone. We need to have some time alone as a band to try to figure out what to do."

"What's to figure out?" Yoojung asked. "Suyeon and Lucy are our members, and we stand behind them."

"Well, yeah, there's that," Doyeon said, "but there's the issue of what Fanmu is going to do."

Just then there was a knock on the door. Rina went and looked through the peephole. "It's Manager-nim," said.

"You'd better open it," Lucy said, slumping down on the couch next to Suyeon. "She'll be even more angry if she has to dig out her key and let herself in."

A few seconds later, Manager-nim came into the common room. Rina came in behind her and sat down on the couch next to Doyeon. Manager-nim turned to face them, staring at each of them in turn, her face an impassive mask. She pulled a magazine out of her purse and held it up. "I'm sure you've already seen what the Dispatch published today. I can only assume that it's true, since none of you called me protesting that it wasn't true."

They all sat quietly, waiting for her to go on.

"I just got out of a meeting with the directors," Manager-nim went on. "They wanted to disband the group, but I went to bat for you and managed to get a more favorable outcome."

"Thank you, Manager-nim," Suyeon said.

"Don't thank me yet, Suyeon," Manager-nim said. "You haven't heard yet the more favorable outcome I was able to negotiate. The