Before I could move, after I was left alone on the train platform, something dawned on me.  Delayed, but my brain finally pieced it together.  Yes, that was definitely the girl I punched in the face at that soccer game.  But she was something else.  It was that ring.  That ring.  I didn’t recognize that ring from the soccer game.

          She was the girl in the photo with Yu Kwon.

          For a split second, I thought about calling Yu Kwon, but my feet were already sprinting back toward his dorm.  I ran as fast as I could and burst through the front entrance of the doors, not caring who saw me.

          Only when I was in the elevator, panting like I’d just run a marathon did I acknowledge the cramp in my right leg.  I pounded on my thigh, trying to relieve the pain.  The elevator dinged as the door slid open.  I ran toward the guys’ door.  I beat my fists on it. 

          I almost punched Ji Hoon in the face when he answered.

          “Beki!” he exclaimed.  I almost wanted to laugh.  Even surprised, his voice was deep and y.  I blinked.

          “Hey, Ji Hoon.  Where’s Yu Kwon?” I panted.

          “In his room still, I think.  You’re here kind of early,” he said.  Then eyeing me suspiciously, he chuckled.  “Or you’re back?  Did you forget something here last night?”

          I felt my cheeks burn with embarrassment.

          “Nice seeing you again, P.O,” I grumbled, darting past him toward Yu Kwon’s door.  I vaguely heard him calling to me, but I was sure he just had another jab he wanted to take at me.

          I pushed open Yu Kwon’s door without knocking.  He was standing in front of his closet.  Wearing jeans, but no shirt.

          Focus.  Focus.  You have a point, I told myself.  His skin looks as smooth as I know it is.  He looks…focus!  Focus.

          “Yu Kwon!”

          He turned around and smiled at me.  I shut the door and leaned against it.

          “The girl.  The photo.  The girl from the photo.  I punched her in the face,” I blurted out, nonsensically.

          He blinked at me before the shock washed over his face.  He dropped the shirt he was holding and came to where I stood in three strides.  “Beki,” he whined.  “You punched someone else in the face?  You shouldn’t start fights when you’re alone.  You should have called me.  I would have come to you.”

          I shook my head furiously.  “No, no!  I punched her in the face before.  The girl from the soccer game!  She’s the girl from the photo!”

          “How did you figure that out?” he asked.  He pushed my hair back from my face.  Trying to be soothing, he only sent shivers down my spine.

          “I saw her at the subway station!  She recognized me.  She talked to me and when she was standing there in front of me, I saw she had a pink ring.  It looked like the one in the photo!” I explained, impatiently.

          “But I don’t remember ever seeing her at any of our fan meetings.  I remember her.  I would never take a photo with her,” he mumbled more to himself. 

          “I don’t understand.  The things she said to me…I know it’s her,” I replied.  I felt defeated and incredibly confused. 

          He turned and headed back to his closet to pick up the shirt he’d let crumple to the floor before.  “Maybe that’s why our manager hyung called me.”

          “What?  What was that?” I demanded watching him slip the tee shirt over his head.  He strode back to me and grabbed me by the hand, pulling me out of his room.

          “Our manager called me maybe ten minutes after you left.  He wants to talk to me,” he replied, still dragging me with him through the hallway.

          “You want me to go with you, Yu Kwon?” Ji Hoon asked from his seat on the couch in the living room.  He stood up, ready to click off the TV.

          Yu Kwon smiled gratefully at his friend.  Not letting go of my hand, he used his free hand to clap Ji Hoon on the back.

          “Thanks, but it’s ok.  Stay here.  Tae Il and Min Hyuck are still sleeping and the others aren’t back yet, so you can just hang out here,” Yu Kwon told him.  Ji Hoon saluted him and grinned at me before flopping back down onto the couch.

          Yu Kwon resumed yanking me out of the dorm.

          I explained to him exactly what the girl said to me on the platform and he told me that his manager called him this morning saying he wanted to talk to him.  That there was a new development in that whole photo scandal.

         “A new development?” I repeated, tugging my hand out of his grasp to link my arm with his.  “What is this, an episode of Law & Order?”

          “Not yet anyway.”  He laughed, cynically as we stopped in front of the door to his manager’s office.  “Another photo popped up on a fansite though.”

          “What?!” I squeaked.  “Wait, maybe I shouldn’t be going with you.”

          He placed a soft kiss to my cheek near my ear.  “It’s alright.  Manager Cho knows about you.”

          Before I could say anything else, he adjusted my arm so that it linked tighter with his and knocked on the door. 

          We both bowed respectfully to his manager when we entered.

          He stood at his desk.  A younger man who had been sitting in the chair in front of the manager’s desk stood and bowed lightly.

          “Please, sit,” his manager said, gesturing to the empty chairs next to the one the younger man was sitting in.  “You remember Lee Sang Woo, don’t you, Yu Kwon?  My assistant?”

          “Yes, sir,” Yu Kwon answered bowing slightly in his seat at the younger man.  “This is my girlfriend, Beki.  She stopped by this morning right before I left.  No one saw her.  She’s good at staying off the radar.  I hope you don’t mind that I brought her.”

          His manager smiled at me.  He looked older.  Maybe my dad’s age.  His hair was jet black while my dad’s had some gray in it already. 

          “It’s fine.  I trust you guys to be careful,” he answered with a nod.  “Nice to meet you, Beki.”

          I returned the smile and bowed again.  “Nice to meet you,” I repeated in a soft voice.  No matter how well I spoke Korean, I always felt self conscious when speaking it.

          “Now,” the manager began, leaning back in his seat.  “This new photo.  Have you seen it?”

          “No, sir,” Yu Kwon answered.  He looked to me.  I shook my head.  I bit my tongue from blurting out some sarcastic comment about being with him all last night and since we were playing on the computer, how could I have seen it?

          The manager began clicking through his computer.  He twisted the monitor around to face us.  “Sang Woo here found it just this morning.  We are having a member of our public relations team look into where it came from.  This is it.”

          I stared at the screen.  It was Yu Kwon and a girl.  I assumed the same girl from the first photo.  The from the soccer game.  It just had to be.  She had her arms wrapped around Yu Kwon’s neck and with her head tilted to the side, she peeked only one eye at the camera.  Her hair was curtained over the side of her face and down her back.  The photo itself was cropped strangely.  Yu Kwon wasn’t touching her.  His arms were wide open at his sides.  And he had the biggest smile on his face.

          I couldn’t help but shoot a look at Yu Kwon.  He shook his head at me and looked back to his manager.

          “I don’t get it!  How is she doing this?  I never took a photo with her,” he cried out.  “Manager, Beki said she found out who the girl is.”

          The manager listened attentively as Yu Kwon retold what I told him about my run in with the girl on the platform.

          Sang Woo covered his mouth when he listened to Yu Kwon hurry through the part about me punching the girl in the face on the soccer field.  I appreciated him trying not to laugh at me.

          “Beki, you’re quite the spit fire, aren’t you?” his manager commented after Yu Kwon finished.

          I hung my head.  “I’m sorry.  I just…well, she had it coming,” I muttered.

          “I think you could be good for Yu Kwon.  Wouldn’t want him getting a big head or forgetting where he came from, now would he?”

          I smiled lightly.  “No, sir.  I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

          He nodded, then cleared his throat.  “Hm, now that we know the girl’s history with the guys, that clears up the why a bit.  Except, that doesn’t explain how she got the photos.  Yu Kwon, you’re sure you never took photos with this girl?  Not even quickly on your way to or from a fan meeting?  Perhaps outside on the street, maybe a bunch of fans approached you asking for photos?”

         “No, honest.  I remember that girl.  No matter how distracted or what kind of hurry I was in, I would never have taken a photo with her,” Yu Kwon swore.  His voice was determined.  I believed him.

          Just then a frantic knock sounded from the other side of the office door.

          “Come in,” the manager called.  We all watched as a younger man and woman burst through the door.  The bowed hastily and hurried over to his desk.

          “Mr. Cho, we think we figured it out,” the man explained.  “May we show you?” he questioned, gesturing to the manager’s computer.  Manager Cho stood up from his chair and held it out to the girl who dropped into his seat.  She turned the monitor away from us to face her and began clicking furiously and typing her way through the system to bring up whatever it was she was looking for.  I looked to Yu Kwon, but he just shrugged.  Sang Woo looked like he didn’t know what was going on either as he studied the girl typing at the compute        “See, Manager Cho?  Look at that.  It’s like this,” she said, pointing at something on the computer, when she was finished typing.

          Manager Cho frowned as his eyes scanned over the computer screen.  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he mumbled.  “I don’t believe it.”