The practice room was filled with the usual cacophony of sounds, blasts of music overlapping with shouted commands or the occasional burst of laughter, all layered over the incessant squeaking of several pairs of sneakers.

Jimin watched the dance practice absently, easily tuning out all the familiar sounds while keeping a trained ear out for anything that would actually require her attention. By her side, Aeri sat completely absorbed in her scrolling, eyes glued to her phone screen and head nodding every once in a while.

“Well?” Jimin asked, once her colleague seemed to finally come up for air.

“Oh, yeah,” Aeri agreed with the unspoken expectation. She nodded some more, eyes scanning over the same message a few times. “He is down bad.”

“Right?”

It was good to know Jimin wasn’t the only one seeing it. She hadn’t gone through the whole chat log yet, but as her conclusion became clearer and clearer, she’d really needed someone else to have a look and tell her she wasn’t going crazy.

“Seriously, this whole thing reads like a y/n fic.”

“A what?”

Aeri looked up and they locked gazes for a beat.

“I wouldn’t burden you with that knowledge,” she finally conceded. Jimin quirked a brow. Must be another of her weird Internet things.

Aeri stretched back in her chair with a groan, smoothing out the kinks in her neck before returning to her browsing, idly swiping at the screen to move the messages up and down.

“This is, like, psychologically fascinating,” she carried on. “He’s obviously, transparently, painfully into her, and she apparently has no idea. So, either she’s a top contender for most oblivious person on Earth…”

“… Or she’s some kind of manipulative mastermind with acting skills good enough for an Oscar,” Jimin concluded for her, used to their quipping back-and-forth. Aeri gave a thumbs-up at the dramatic hyperbole.

“Well, you met her,” her colleague pointed out, forgetting about the messages for a moment to waggle her eyebrows at her. “Which one is it?”

Jimin thought back to their two meetings, and to the impression Kim Minjeong had left on her in that short time.

At first glance, she looked like exactly the type to end up in a situation like this: cute, a little eager, looking closer to twelve than to twenty-two. Even when she outsmarted Jimin, it seemed like it was entirely by accident, like someone who just always dropped her toast butter-side-up.

But she did outsmart her.

Jimin had the sneaking suspicion that the girl knew exactly how she came across, and that she put those big innocent puppy eyes of hers to good use.

“You know, they say when you’re around a psychopath you can tell,” she began, continuing her dramatic streak. She leaned in a little closer. “Like something feels off.”

“And?” Aeri asked, half invested, half indulging her.

“I definitely felt something.”

“Yeah, well, she’s the cutest little thing and you’re a gay mess, so I wouldn’t go straight to personality disorder for this one.”

“I- Wh- I resent the accusation!”

“Sure you do,” Aeri said with a sudden smirk.

“Anyway, how do you even know if she’s cute?” Jimin asked, more to distract her than anything else.

“Found her on social media. She’s got everything on private, but I did get a look at the profile picture, and she is cute as a button, huh?”

“I’m obviously not answering that,” Jimin pointed out, unwilling to fall back into the gay mess discussion.

“It’s cute that you think it makes a difference. Anyway, it’s not just the baby face that does it. Even the way she types is cute. And the stickers.”

“Everybody uses stickers.”

“But only one person has ever wielded them so effectively that she conquered the NCT’s Renjun’s heart,” Aeri commented, smiling at Jimin’s eyeroll. She sighed, and Jimin was sure she wasn’t done speaking nonsense. “Love is a funny thing.”

“That’s it, we need to cut down on your screen time.”

Jimin lunged forward, trying to pull the phone from Aeri’s grasp, but the woman was too fast for her, body twisting around to protect the device, and Jimin only managed a smack to her shoulder.

“Give it or you’re grounded!”

She tried to keep the laughter from her voice as her hands flailed blindly around Aeri and failed to grab anything at all.

“No, I’m invested now!” Aeri whined in response. “She had a test and I need to know how she did!”

“Oh, what test?”

Aeri stopped resisting and turned to throw a teasing smirk in Jimin’s face.

“Okay, whatever,” Jimin said as dismissively as she could manage. “I’m a little bit invested too. I think my brain started reading it like a webnovel at some point. It’s too weird to think that I’m just snooping into someone else’s private conversations.”

“She did ask you to do it.”

“Because somebody had to.”

“Maybe. Or maybe because she liiiikes you and wants you to know all about her and have an excuse to talk to her again.”

“She does not.”

Jimin winced at how unconvincing she sounded, and of course Aeri pounced immediately.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

The thing was that, actually, Minjeong had asked her to contact her again. When everything had been sorted with the chat log reviews, and she’d reached out to Minjeong to let her know…

“She wanted me to text her,” Jimin admitted with a slight grimace. “Like, status updates? I’m not sure what exactly she wants, she just said she felt weird not knowing how things were going and she wanted me to, like… check in. Or something.”

“Ooh, she’s making a move!”

“She’s not- This is serious, I’m actually kind of worried about it! What do I say? Should I just say nothing?”

“I say go for it. Tell her everything. ‘Hey, girl, we’ve been reading through your messages and I just wanted to say, Renjun is obviously in love with you and it’s hilarious that you never noticed.’” Aeri paused her imaginary check-in to throw out some finger guns. “’Also, sorry about that biochem test.’”

“What happened with the test?” Jimin asked, happy to let her brain get invested in its webnovel again, rather than process any of what Aeri was throwing her way.

“In her words:” Aeri began, then cleared and read out the message with careful intonation. “’It was awful. I’m going to mega fail. The dean himself will visit my dorm to get the pleasure of personally expelling me for aggravated exam failure.’” She stopped to scroll down the conversation with a surgical swipe of her index finger. “Next message: ‘Dishonorably discharged from higher education.’”

“She’s being dramatic, she always says that and then it always turns out fine.”

“That’s our Minjeong,” Aeri said about a woman she’d never met in her life.

Jimin sighed.

“This whole situation is way too weird.”

“Agreed,” Aeri said simply. Jimin leaned back in her chair. “Anyway, you should text her.”

“What? No- Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” Aeri whined, clearly disappointed. “You were thinking about it.”

“Yeah, and I’m done thinking, and the answer is no.”

“But she’s cute,” Aeri insisted, stretching the word out into multiple syllables. “She asked you to text. She’s waiting for you to text!”

“She’s not waiting, and she’s not interested, and I am not texting her.”

Jimin crossed her arms, trying not to get defensive, and knowing deep down that she already was. To be honest, she did want to text Minjeong. Even if it was to say nothing of substance, because she doubted the company would be alright with her sharing any of her conclusions.

Minjeong was cute. She was really cute. She had a smile that was just impossible to resist.

But she was also connected with Jimin in the most complicated, unwelcome, professionally dubious of ways and, if Jimin was being totally honest with herself, it was much likelier that the girl wanted updates because of Renjun than because of his manager that she’d met twice.

“Aw, come on!”

Aeri quieted down after the outburst, hopefully humbled by Jimin’s unimpressed glare. She looked away, towards the guys who were still going through their new choreography.

“Alright, no, I get it,” Aeri picked right back up, still looking off into the distance and therefore missing the way Jimin slumped into her seat with a slight groan. “I came on too strong, I scared you off with how badly I want this for you. The wingman in me came roaring out and you weren’t ready.” She pretended not to notice a second, louder groan. “But I can fix it, I’ll be chill. I’ll be so chill from now on.”

“You’ve never been chill about anything in your life. And this is a stupid idea, anyway. I’ll let you wingman me with anyone else, I promise, you can even take me to that gay bar again.”

“But I want Minjeong,” Aeri said with a tiny pout. “I don’t know, reading those messages, I feel like I really get her. Her hopes, her dreams, her fears. Her type.”

“Not Renjun?” Jimin offered. It was a little mean, maybe, but Aeri laughed, so at least she wasn’t the only mean girl in the room.

“Well, strong start for you.”

“Guess I’ll quit while I’m ahead.”

“You know, this is why you’re still single,” Aeri said. Jimin resisted the urge to point out that Aeri was just as single, and only rolled her eyes in response. “I was ready to help you with that status update and everything. You know how good I am at ‘what are we’ texts. They give away nothing and there’s no way to answer without picking a side.”

“And you can work that into a message from a near-stranger telling her how the investigation into her not-boyfriend is going?”

“It’s-”

“Except you can’t actually tell her how it’s going, because it’s going awful, and she already knows more than she should.”

Aeri huffed at the interruption. “As I was saying,” she began pointedly, “it’s a new angle, but I’m up for the challenge.”

Jimin studied her silently for a long moment. Aeri returned the gaze steadily, tension mounting as Jimin’s watch ticked away the seconds. Not that either of them could hear it over all the noise filling the practice room.

Aeri blinked first, then immediately groaned in defeat.

“Gotcha again,” Jimin said simply, putting on her favorite infuriating smirk.

“I have really dry eyes!”

“You’re just bored,” Jimin said, switching abruptly back to the dropped topic. Aeri knew her too well to be confused, and just nodded thoughtfully along.

“Maybe so.”

“So go back to invading a young woman’s privacy and stop trying to drag me into it.”

“Fine, but I’m holding you to that gay bar promise.”

With that final comment, Aeri recovered her phone and returned to her investigative work. Jimin watched her at first, making sure she was actually focused on her task and not about to jump into yet another wingman tangent. When she was satisfied that she could drop her guard, she settled herself more comfortably in her seat and let the music and chatter slowly turn to white noise.

This relaxed state could quickly turn into a full-on nap, but that was exactly the kind of sloppy work that had ended up with Renjun slipping away to make illicit phone calls. She doubted the people upstairs would be very lenient with whomever made that kind of mistake again, so she kept her eyes stubbornly open, and vaguely focused on the dancing figures across the room.

Aeri was mostly silent, except for the occasional snort or some derisive mumble that Jimin couldn’t quite catch. The minutes slowly dragged by. Aeri found out that Minjeong had passed that biochem test after all, and Jimin offered a little half-hearted cheer.

The silence stretched on. And then...

“Oh?”

Jimin threw a brief glance at Aeri, curious at the surprise in her voice.

“What?” she asked in the laziest of monotones, not sure that whatever it was merited her full attention.

“Nothing. Just, I’m right all the time about everything and it’s about time I accept this about myself.”

“If you won the lottery, I want a cut,” Jimin said, more than ready to return to her half-asleep state. “Call it emotional damages.”

“Minjeong texted,” Aeri replied in a singsong.

“Hilarious.”

“Oh,” Aeri repeated. Jimin rolled her eyes. “Oh no, girl, she called you ‘NCT’s manager.’ I don’t think she knows your name, this is so tragic.”

“I’m not going to buy it just because you’re making it more realistic.”

“’Hello, is this NCT’s manager?’” Aeri recited, like she was reading it off her phone. Great, now she was putting on a whole performance. “’This is Kim Minjeong, you’ve contacted me from this number a few times regarding Renjun.’”

“’I’ve changed my mind and I want to date him, actually,’” Jimin picked up where Aeri left off. “’Could you let me know when SM lets him out of phone jail and hook me up with his new number?’”

Aeri mumbled something inaudible, still looking at her phone. “Hmm, she asked how things are going. I mean, yeah, ostensibly that’s about the messages, but it leaves some wiggle room. As a master of being ambiguous over text, it’s something I’d pull. Oh, she’s good.”

“Okay, well, let me know when you’re done playing pretend by yourself.”

“Sure, don’t worry about it.”

“Weirdo.”

Jimin returned her attention to the boys. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Aeri bringing the phone up to her ear.

One ring.

Two rings.

“Hello, this is Kim Aeri speaking. No, no, we haven’t met before.”

Jimin’s head snapped back to Aeri. Was she actually-

Had Minjeong actually-

She rushed to get to her feet and stop whatever was about to happen, but Aeri sidestepped just out of reach and she nearly tumbled to her knees with the missed momentum of her lunge.

“You see,” Aeri carried on like nothing had happened, “this number actually belongs to a shared NCT staff phone, for organizational reasons, but if you’d like to speak to a particular manager, I can go find them and put you through.”

Aeri was power-walking across the practice room, still out of Jimin’s reach despite her best efforts. Jimin called out a desperate, half-whispered half-shouted “What are you doing?” but the only response she got was Aeri flapping about with her free hand, like a-

“Wings, baby, I’ve got wings!” she called out gleefully, at least taking the care to cover the phone’s receiver. “I’m going to wingman you all the way to the sun!”

“I don’t think that’s-”

“We’re soarin’, flyin’- Oh, it’s no problem at all,” she said, releasing the receiver as she shifted from her energetic performance to a much more professional tone. Jimin skidded to a stop and Aeri immediately seized the opportunity to run to the door and swing it open. “Don’t even worry about it. So, could you just tell me the name?”

She stepped outside. Jimin followed a beat later, carefully closing the door behind them while Aeri eyed her warily, ready to dart away at any moment. But, for now, curiosity had won out over caution, and Jimin was wondering what the girl would say.

Aeri nodded, biting down on a sudden smile. “Oh, you can’t remember? But you think it starts with a J?” She covered the receiver yet again, this time to let out a wheezing laugh that she barely managed to clamp down before carrying on. “That does narrow it down, but I’m afraid we have quite a few managers whose names start with J. Maybe you could describe her a little?”

With the door closed, they stood in relative silence, only muffled music making it through to the empty corridor. Aeri finally pulled the phone from her ear and, instead of handing it to Jimin, did the infinitely more embarrassing thing and put it on speaker. She was still smiling, and giving Jimin the encouraging look of someone who expected infinite praise to come spilling out of the phone at her request for a description.

Immediately, Minjeong’s voice reached Jimin’s ears, a little tinny over the line, and clearly taken aback by the direction the phone call was taking.

“Um, she was… tall?” she began bravely. “She had a small face and long hair. Uh, one of the times she was wearing glasses, but I’m not sure if they’re prescription or just, you know, cosmetic. Is that- Does that narrow it down?”

Aeri looked a little disappointed that Minjeong hadn’t mentioned anything about eyes like endless pools or enticing lips or however it was that characters were described in the questionable fanfiction she was always reading. Still, she didn’t let that stop her, and carried on with a scheme so stupid that Jimin immediately regretted not trying harder to stop this.

“I’m afraid there’s actually two managers matching that description.”

“There’s two...” Minjeong repeated awkwardly, now even more lost.

“Two managers whose name starts with J, who are tall with small faces and long hair. I know, what are the odds? We laugh about it all the time. But they’re easy to tell apart, because one of them is average and the other one is super pretty.”

A long pause. Jimin waited for Minjeong to say something, or to hang up, or to do the obvious thing and just ask for both names to see if either rang a bell.

“Uh… What?” the girl asked instead. A fair question.

“Well, one of them is just average. She’s not bad looking or anything, she’s just not that good looking either, you know? She’s fine but she’s not turning heads wherever she goes, just average. And then the other one is super pretty. Next-level pretty. People walk into walls because they’re busy staring at her, that kind of pretty. Which one does your manager sound like?”

“The… pretty one,” Minjeong said, sounding a lot less mortified than Jimin would feel if the tables were turned.

“She thinks you’re pretty,” Aeri whispered her way, looking way too proud of herself. Jimin wanted to say something back, but she couldn’t muster up a single word for one endless embarrassing moment. “Ah, I see, you must be looking for Yu Jimin,” Aeri carried on pleasantly. “She’s something else, am I right? You could really get lost in those eyes.”

“They’re nice eyes,” Minjeong agreed easily enough. Or maybe she’d passed the threshold of weird and was willing to agree with anything to end the conversation. “So, is she available?”

“Absolutely, let me put her on.”

Aeri took a single step forward and offered up the phone.

Now, after all the damage was done and Jimin was still recovering the power of speech. Now she got the phone back. Aeri flashed an innocent smile. Jimin reached for the phone slowly but inevitably.

“The gay bar is canceled,” she whispered right before picking up.

(…)

If Aeri had expected budding romance and flowery confessions to come out of her wingman efforts, she must have been pretty disappointed by the phone call that actually took place.

Despite how much trouble it took for Minjeong to finally get Jimin on the other side of the line, the girl had clearly not planned for anything beyond the question she’d already sent by text, and Jimin wasn’t doing much better. Like she’d said to Aeri, there was a reason she hadn’t contacted Minjeong yet, and that was that she had absolutely no idea how to phrase what she was allowed to share without getting SM’s permission first, which was more or less nothing.

She confirmed that they were going through the messages. She made her best noncommittal sounds when Minjeong asked what they thought. She withstood crushing silence for about three seconds before she asked if there was anything else and hurried to hang up at Minjeong’s hesitant “Um, I guess not.”

To her credit, Aeri took it like a champ. She sighed, she said she’d done the best she could, and she dropped it.

She did try to haggle for the gay bar again, but thankfully that was nipped in the bud when they remembered they wouldn’t have any free weekends for the next couple of months.

When her bosses inevitably requested that she meet the girl again to “touch base” – in other words, to give the NDA another push and not actually reveal anything pertinent about Renjun’s situation -, she was determined to be purely professional, and definitely not let Aeri’s ideas get in her head. She had a job to do, and it wasn’t even a particularly nice one: she was just here to waste Minjeong’s time and, to a lesser extent, her own.

“Minjeong,” she said, as usual, when the girl arrived at her table at the now-familiar coffee shop.

She seemed more dressed up this time, with a cardigan over a nice-looking patterned dress. It was the weekend, so Jimin supposed she might have plans after this. She should really try not to keep the girl too long, then.

“Jimin,” Minjeong said happily, bouncing into her seat. She seemed very proud of herself for remembering the name this time, which almost made Aeri’s stunt worth it. “Your hair looks nice today.”

“Oh, th-thank you,” Jimin stuttered out at the unexpected compliment, absently threading her fingers through the hair that she’d decided not to pull into a ponytail for once. Minjeong offered her an encouraging smile. “Uh, right, so, you know, thank you for your time. Again.”

“Sure, whatever you need. So, you said you finished going over the messages?”

“Yes, that’s right. They’ve already been deleted from the staff phone and, right now, we’re just hanging on to the backup until the higher-ups sign off on it.”

Minjeong nodded, taking in Jimin’s carefully prepared speech. “So, what’s the verdict? Am I cleared of all charges?”

“Well, we’ve sent our report, now we’ll have to wait for it to be reviewed and let’s see if they’re satisfied.” She smiled, the kind of smile that seemed to say ‘please don’t ask any follow-up questions,’ and pulled out the now-familiar sheaf of papers. “You know, you can still change your mind about the NDA. It won’t get your messages unread, but I’ll be honest with you, I have no idea how much longer this whole business will take. And, you know, they wouldn’t go to all that trouble if they knew you weren’t going to say anything.”

Minjeong’s apologetic smile didn’t look the slightest bit remorseful.

“Right. Lawyer sister,” Jimin guessed easily.

Honestly, Jimin suspected SM didn’t give a single crap about Minjeong’s situation, or her texts, or Renjun’s feelings. They just wanted that NDA signed and they’d keep dragging out the process and setting up these meetings with Minjeong until she gave in. Maybe they’d start trying to sweeten the deal at some point, offer some concert tickets or exclusive merch. Jimin wouldn’t put it beyond some of the people she worked for.

Some part of Jimin was kind of hoping Minjeong’s scary lawyer sister would find out about all this at some point and it would blow up in SM’s face, even if it would probably cost Jimin’s job. Although, if Minjeong hadn’t told her sister by now, she clearly preferred for things to stay as they were. So maybe it was a little mean to wish for it.

“So, did…” Minjeong fiddled with her straw. “Did a lot of people read my texts? I didn’t realize you guys had such a big team, actually, I figured it would be like… two, or three people.”

“No, it’s more or less that.”

“But when