The girls were performing I Got a Boy in which Yuri and Sooyoung spend the first few seconds rapping by themselves, followed by Tiffany's solo introduction. Luckily, Taeyeon made it on stage in time while covertly handing Jessica her ear-piece; though it was evident that all of them experienced a moment of panic as their leader failed to show up punctually and their other lead vocalist was without a voice. A few of the girls became distracted in their thoughts, wondering what in the world could have possibly happened to Taeyeon. Despite making small mistakes here and there, the rest of the evening played out smoothly.

As soon as the stage lights turned off and the camera's rolled themselves away, the girls bombarded their leader with questions, both of concern and disapproval.

“What on earth could've possibly happened for you to be that late?”

“Are you hurt?”

“We thought we were going to die out there!”

“Seriously, I was already thinking of how to improv both of yours and Jessica's parts.”

“Don't do that again!”

“Taeyeon, what kept you?”

“It's nothing guys. Jessica's boy-” she corrected herself, “...friend. Jessica's friend saw me and handed me her ear-piece. 'Said he's already got a new girlfriend,” she lied and then looked at Jessica, “and he shouldn't really be talking to you so casually, at least not for now anyways.” She couldn't keep her gaze for long, and her eyes trailed away to the floor. As much as she tried, she couldn't suppress the guilt of her dishonesty. But she really wanted to keep them away. “We spoke for a while and before I knew it, the show had already started and I rushed on over.”

Most of the girls reluctantly accepted the answer, though some still had questions, they didn't want to press the matter further. The show's unexpected storm had subsided, and they were tired. Everyone, especially Taeyeon, hoped that a good night's rest would clean whatever uncertainty may be left in the air.

It was nearing midnight when most of the girls were already in bed. The only people still awake were Taeyeon and Sunny, who both had a show to MC the following evening. After 10 minutes of reviewing her lines in her room, Sunny made her way to the kitchen to fix herself a cup of tea. She noticed Taeyeon's bedroom lights were still on and assumed that she must be reading her lines too.

To the public she was known as a cute girl, a well-rounded entertainer, and the shortest member of the most popular girl group in all of Asia. But Sunny had also always been a considerate soul. She wasn't afraid of getting her hands dirty for the sake of others, didn't think twice about charity, stood up for the unrepresented and unfortunate... She would go out of her way to make sure everything would turn out all right. Sunny had a hidden sharpness to her that the camera could only catch a glimpse of, a control over her surroundings that implied a maturity beyond her years.

So when she opened the door out of consideration, in order to offer her friend a simple cup of tea, she also wasn't surprised to see Taeyeon holding the crumpled red letter in her hand.

“Hello, sweet secret admirer.”

“Wait! Sunny! This isn't what it looks like!”

“Now tell me,” Sunny ignored, “what really happened today...” She slowly closed the door, the hinges creaking in the threshold of a secretive room and a darkened hallway.