I'll Be Good For You, Ch. 6
Previously:
Chapter 1: Here's to the Night
Chapter 2: Maneater
Chapter 3: Know Your Enemy
Chapter 4: I Just Wanna Live
Chapter 5: Shark in the Water
Disclaimer: The A.N.JELL-verse belongs to the Hong sisters, creators of You're Beautiful, and the book Wolf of the Plains to Conn Iggulden. (It is an awesome novel about Genghis Khan, and I highly recommend it.) I have no idea whether it's been translated into Korean yet, but I'm assuming that it has. Also, Genghis Khan belongs to himself and Chocopies to the LOTTE Corporation.
Technical Notes: I've been very lax about the passage of time in my fics, so I just kind of tacked Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) in here to show that it's now autumn. I'm not that bad about letting time stand still :-p
Author's Notes: Thanks, as always, to akaironoyoru and lilivanilla1 for reviewing, and to those of you still following this story :)
Chapter Six - Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk (The New Pornographers)
"I don't feel comfortable doing this," Mi-nam muttered. "Reporter Park is so not my type."
"Don't be a baby." Jeremy pressed the box into his hands. "This isn't a romantic gift; we're giving all the staffers the same thing."
"Maybe we should give her makeup."
"You don't give makeup during Chuseok!" the blond boy scoffed. "Besides, if she's not your type, why are you talking about giving her makeup?"
"Just get it over with, please, Mi-nam?" Tae-kyung sighed impatiently.
Dragging his feet to show his displeasure, Mi-nam nevertheless followed orders and made his way to the writer's office. "Knock, knock," he called as he knocked on her door.
The door opened a few moments later and the writer peeked out, adjusting her heavy-framed eyeglasses. "Yes?... Oh, Go Mi-nam," she greeted him when she saw him standing out in the hallway. "What can I do for you?"
"Nothing much," he answered with his most charming smile. "I just stopped by to give you this, as a thank-you from A.N.JELL. Chuseok is coming up, after all, and we wanted you to know that we really appreciate all your hard work."
As a reporter, Oh-lan was used to receiving these goodwill tokens, especially around the holidays, but she smiled with genuine gratitude. It was always nice to get some recognition. She opened the box and discovered the array of sangpyeon, rice cakes made especially for the holiday, inside. Although these were traditionally steamed over pine needles, the cakes in the box were still uncooked so that they wouldn't go bad right away.
"Thank you very much for the gift," she said. "My parents will enjoy them when I go home for the holidays."
"Will you be traveling far to visit your family?" Mi-nam asked.
"No, just to Yongin," she replied easily. With the holiday break coming up, everyone was discussing their plans. "How about you?"
"Oh, I'm not going anywhere. My sister will visit, but we'll still be working over the break."
"At least you'll still get to spend some time with your family."
"Yeah."
What was shaping up to be an awkward break in the conversation was saved when Oh-lan suddenly remembered something. "Oh! It's a good thing you stopped by," she said. "I almost forgot that I have something for you, too."
"For me?" Mi-nam asked, but she had already disappeared back into her office.
Soon, she was at the door again. "Here," she said, holding something out to him - the hair tie he had given her on the day of their one-on-one interview. "I've been meaning to return this, but kept forgetting."
Laughing, he shook his head. "You didn't have to give this back. It's just a rubber band."
"No, please take it. I don't like borrowing things from people and not returning them. Besides," she added piously, folding her hands like Mi-nyeo getting ready to say her prayers, "I have a whole bunch of these in my bag now. Stylist Wang has ordered me to stop using pens as hair accessories."
"She did?" Mi-nam asked in mock surprise. He knew that he was acting like an idiot, but the writer was joking around for once, and he was supposed to keep her in a good mood, wasn't he? "But if you don't have a pen in your hair, how will we know that it's you?"
"I'll probably still do that," she confided, "but at least I'll have something to use if Stylist Wang catches me."
"Good," he replied with a decisive nod. "We don't want to keep you being yourself."
"That's nice to hear." The writer smiled, and once again he wondered what it was about her that didn't make him think of nuns anymore.
"Uh..." he said then, just managing to remember that it was his turn to speak. "I should get going. Our break must be over by now."
"Of course," she said, preparing to back inside her office. "Thank you again for the gift."
Mi-nam thought that his bandmates would leave him alone after he delivered the rice cakes, but Jeremy, of course, had to spoil everything by announcing that he was going on a date with Su-jin before she went out of town with her parents for Chuseok. Thus, barely twenty-four hours after presenting her with the sangpyeon, he was herding the writer out of AN Entertainment and towards a book café down the street.
"I was in the middle of something!" she protested.
"I'm sure it can wait." He took her hand and tucked it in his elbow to keep her from running away; when she disengaged, he grabbed her wrist and held it fast. Currently, he was torn between venting his annoyance at Jeremy, and maintaining a smooth façade. Fortunately for Jeremy, the latter won out. Go Mi-nam never had a woman run away from him.
"What are we doing here?" she asked when they entered the café and he hustled her over to the coffee bar.
"Just think of it as a gesture of appreciation," he told her, releasing her arm and ordering a caffè Americano.
"But you guys already gave me rice cakes, just yesterday," she reminded him.
"That was from all of us. This is from just me. Now, what would you like? It's my treat."
Surprised, the writer asked for a latte. "You're not trying to make me give you special attention in the book, are you?" she asked suspiciously while the barista made their drinks.
"Of course not!" Mi-nam grinned. "Would you do it, though?"
"Of course not!"
"It didn't hurt to ask," he said with a good-natured shrug. "If you must know, I brought you here because I think you've been working too hard. Didn't you just ask me something related to work just now? My gift to you is an hour outside of the office, where you don't have to think about work. Actually," he added, "I'm making that a rule - for this one hour, you are not allowed to think about work."
For a moment, he thought she was going to argue, but instead she blinked and said softly, "Oh. Well... that sounds very nice."
It was Mi-nam's turn to be surprised. "Doesn't anyone ever tell you when you're working too hard?" They didn't really do that in A.N.JELL, but the bandmates nevertheless all looked out for each other; and besides his bandmates, he also had a sister who had worried about him ever since the day they were born.
She shrugged. "I live alone, so there's no one to take care of me but myself. I'm never sick, though," she added, somewhat defensively. "And I'm busy doing what I love, so I guess I'm doing a good job."
"I'm sure you are," he agreed, "but for one hour, I'll take care of you."
He paid for their coffees and two pastries, and carried their snacks to a table near the window. "Thank you," the writer said when they sat down. "This is very nice of you. I didn't know there was a place like this in the area... something tells me I'll visit here a lot from now on."
Mi-nam smiled. "I'm glad you like it, and I'm not surprised that you do." He looked around at the books displayed on shelves and tables around the room. "It looks like there's a lot here that would keep you busy."
As he looked around, he spied Su-jin stepping into the café with a guy that he assumed was Jeremy in disguise. The sight caused him to make a strangled noise in his throat. Fortunately, Jeremy and Su-jin heard it and saw him and the writer sitting inside.
Her back was to the door, so she didn't see them, but she was facing Mi-nam and saw the strange expression that crossed his face. "Is something wrong?" she asked.
Mi-nam shook his head, coughing for effect, as he watched the pair make their escape. "I'm fine," he assured her. "It was one of those strange things between a sneeze and a cough, and it got stuck in my throat. I should probably have some coffee."
The writer nodded seriously. "That sounds like a good idea."
He took a sip from his cup and watched her take a bite of her pastry. As she daintily licked frosting from her fingers, Mi-nam realized just what it was that had been bothering him about her appearance: even though everything about her seemed drab and severe at first glance, Park Oh-lan did have a pouty rosebud of a mouth. Even though she wasn't wearing any lipstick, her lips were pink and smooth, the top one just slightly fuller than the bottom. He wondered whether they tasted like strawberries.
Mi-nam blinked and shook his head. I shouldn't be thinking about that.
She looked up at him, and for a moment he feared that she had read his thoughts. However, she asked, "Are you feeling better?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah." He nodded jerkily. "Much better, thanks."
"That was close," Jeremy said as he and Su-jin entered a small restaurant further down the street.
"Who was the person with Go Mi-nam?" she asked.
"The reporter who's writing the book about us." A waiter came and seated them at a quiet table near the back. "Tae-kyung hyung suspects that she might be planning to write a tell-all book besides the one that President Ahn wants her to write, so we're making sure she doesn't see anything about our personal lives that might cause a scandal.
"But it's not because I'm ashamed of you," he added earnestly, taking her hand. "I just want to protect you. You don't know what fans are like."
"Oh, yes, I do," Su-jin said, looking down at their joined hands but, to Jeremy's delight, not making any effort to withdraw. "I saw what happened last year when news came out that Tae-kyung and Shin-woo had girlfriends. A lot of the die-hard fans went crazy."
He grinned. "Did you go crazy?"
"Of course not," she replied, rolling her eyes. "I wasn't so silly as to claim one of the A.N.JELL members as my exclusive property."
"Yeah? Well, I kind of like the idea of being your exclusive property."
Su-jin's cheeks turned pink and she busied herself with opening the menu. "Anyway, what I mean is that I understand what you're trying to do with the reporter; and if you're trying to protect your privacy from her, then I guess it's a good thing that Ha-neul has a photo shoot for our unni's sports campaign today."
"Yeah, otherwise, she and Shin-woo hyung would be along, too, and this would be a double date."
She was willing to admit that this was a date, but felt that things were starting to sound a bit too serious. "At least this way, there's only one guy here wearing a dumb disguise," she snickered. That day, Jeremy was wearing a dark wig and fake mustache. Like most of his other disguises, it looked ridiculous, but at least he wasn't wearing sunglasses indoors.
"Hey, if you want, I can rent out this whole restaurant," he suggested. "That way, we can have the place to ourselves and I can take this stuff off."
"Omo!" She shook her head vehemently. "Ha-neul would kill me. I already told you that she has this thing about you spending too much money on me. Just keep it on, it's cheaper."
Presently, the waiter reappeared to take their orders. Su-jin ordered a salad. "Are you on a diet again?" Jeremy asked her after placing his own order for a bacon cheeseburger and fries. "Haven't I already told you that you don't need to go on a diet?"
She gave him an irritated look. "First of all, this is my body and I'll take care of it however I like," she told him. "Second of all, I'm not eating a salad because I'm on a diet. Ha-neul and me are having dinner with our unni tonight, after the photo shoot, and I want to save space for that."
(A third reason, and the most important one, was that salads were easier to eat than sandwiches. Even though Jeremy didn't seem to care, Su-jin didn't want to eat like a pig in front of him. She wasn't going to tell him that, though.)
Fortunately, the answer that she did give seemed to satisfy him. "Good," he said with an approving nod. "Personally, it's not much fun to hug skinny girls."
"I wouldn't know about that. I don't hug girls that much."
He laughed briefly, giving her that half-smile that she still refused to admit did funny things to her insides, and wisely dropped the subject. "So, the campaign launch is in a few weeks," he said instead. "Will you be there?"
She nodded. "It's one of Kyung-soon unni's biggest projects for the foundation. A lot of us are coming to support her, and Ha-neul of course. How about you?"
"Of course we'll be there. Everyone who appeared in the ads is supposed to come, and we're performing the official song, too." He paused. "It's too bad that we need to pretend that we're just friends at the launch. It would have been nice to be open about our relationship."
Su-jin toyed with her water glass, moving it around in circles. She wanted to tell him that they didn't have a relationship to be open about, but he sounded so sincere and she didn't want to wreck the atmosphere - or worse, make a scene. "Well, you did say you're trying to hide your private lives from that reporter."
Suddenly, Jeremy brightened. "Hey, we don't have to totally hide it," he told her. "I just remembered that my mom called today to tell me that she and my dad are coming to Korea next month. You should meet them when they get here."
The water glass stopped moving. "Me?"
"Of course, you. It's only proper that they meet my girlfriend, right?"
"But I'm not-"
"That's enough!" he interrupted with a scowl. Even though they disagreed about a lot of things, largely because they both found it fun to argue, he wasn't going to accept anything less than a "yes" in this case. "Whatever you are, you're definitely the girl that I want to make my girlfriend," he told her firmly. "That's reason enough for you to have to meet my parents. And that's the final word on it."
Instead of getting angry at his heavy-handed approach, Su-jin just looked at him, surprised into silence... and was that a sparkle of admiration in her eyes?
Aha, Jeremy thought smugly, even though he kept a severe frown on his face. So Su-jin digs alpha males.
Then she started giggling. "I wish you could see the look on your face. That mustache makes you look so silly!"
On the other hand... he decided as she dug out her cell phone to take a picture, maybe the alpha male approach wasn't as helpful as he thought.
Not surprisingly, Mi-nam and Jeremy were the objects of much teasing on the ride home from the studio. "How were your daaaates?" Tae-kyung asked, smirking.
"Mine went very well, thank you," Jeremy answered happily. Mi-nam scowled at him, still annoyed over having his day disrupted, but the blond boy was either totally oblivious or gloating on purpose.
"Did Su-jin finally take you back for good?" Shin-woo wanted to know.
"Well, no, and we argued about that-"
"-as usual," Tae-kyung interjected.
"Yeah, but it was still very nice. I'm going to introduce her to my parents when they visit next month."
"Sounds serious."
"It is," the drummer confirmed with a smile. "And Su-jin said she's willing to meet them."
"That's a big deal," Shin-woo told him, reaching over to give him a friendly punch on the arm. (Mi-nam wished he could sock Jeremy one, too.) "Congratulations."
"How about you, Go Mi-nam?" Tae-kyung asked him. "How was your date?"
"It wasn't a date," he reminded the vocalist. "And she gave me homework."
Laughter filled the van. "You're kidding!"
"Nope." There was a rustle as Mi-nam kicked a bag at his feet. "She sales-talked me into buying some books that she thought I might like. Now I have to read them because she's probably going to ask me what I think of them."
"Maybe you'll have to write book reports, too." The guitarist tried and failed to suppress a laugh. "Sorry."
"I wouldn't be surprised if I did," he grumbled. "So, as you can see, I didn't go on a date - I attended a one-on-one lecture about books."
"At least you got some new books out of it," Tae-kyung said with obviously false brightness.
"And you helped me make some real progress with Su-jin," Jeremy added, still grinning from ear to ear. He sounded like he really appreciated Mi-nam's running interference with the writer, but the glint of mischief in his eyes said that he was also obviously enjoying the fact that he hadn't had to take one for the team. "You're a good friend, Go Mi-nam!"
"Yeah, yeah."
Mi-nam's bandmates teased him some more when they got home and discovered that most of his new books were written for young adults. "She's making you read baby books?" Jeremy laughed as they hung out in the kitchen, having late-night snacks and looking over the books. He ripped open a box of Chocopies, scattering them all over the counter and earning a disapproving look from Tae-kyung.
"They're not 'baby books,' they're for young adults," Mi-nam corrected him. He had known they would laugh at him, but fortunately this wasn't all his doing. "I know people our age are supposed to be too old for these things, but they're what Reporter Park recommended that I read. She knows we have really busy schedules, so I would be able to read these without taking up too much time."
"That makes sense," Shin-woo admitted as he poured himself some more tea. "I guess it might not matter what you read if you read for fun. The important thing is that you get to relax."
"And even though they're for kids, that doesn't mean the writers aren't good," the keyboardist went on. "Reporter Park says she still has her copies of these books, and she still buys these authors' new books when they come out."
"Hey, they're not all baby books," Tae-kyung observed, picking up the only "adult" one out of the pile of books and Chocopies.
"Wolf of the Plains," Shin-woo read, peering at the title.
"It's a novel about Genghis Khan," Mi-nam told them, happy to show off this book, at least. "Reporter Park has read a lot of books about him and she says this is the best one. She says there's a lot of action so you won't notice that it's so long."
"That sounds interesting. May I borrow it after you're finished?"
"Me, too!" Jeremy said, not to be outdone.
"I don't know how fast I'll be able to get through it," he told his bandmates as he unwrapped another Chocopie.
"Then we should read it together!" the drummer suggested. "Bring it to the studio and we'll read it to each other during breaks. That way, we all know what's happening."
"And Reporter Park will be happy when she sees us reading her book," Tae-kyung added, nodding wisely. "Either that or she'll make us form a book club, but the point is that it will distract her and keep her in a good mood."
"I guess she's a fan of Genghis Khan," Shin-woo remarked.
"I think her mother is," Mi-nam told him. "Reporter Park told me that she was sort of named after his mother."
Jeremy's eyes widened. "No wonder she's so scary!"
The keyboardist thought about the writer again. He thought about her boring black clothes and thick glasses, perpetual bad hair and unfeminine, strictly-business manner. Then he thought about her hands and how her face had lit up as she talked to him about her favorite books, and once again about that pouty rosebud mouth. "Actually," he said, "she's not so bad."
Chapter 1: Here's to the Night
Chapter 2: Maneater
Chapter 3: Know Your Enemy
Chapter 4: I Just Wanna Live
Chapter 5: Shark in the Water
Disclaimer: The A.N.JELL-verse belongs to the Hong sisters, creators of You're Beautiful, and the book Wolf of the Plains to Conn Iggulden. (It is an awesome novel about Genghis Khan, and I highly recommend it.) I have no idea whether it's been translated into Korean yet, but I'm assuming that it has. Also, Genghis Khan belongs to himself and Chocopies to the LOTTE Corporation.
Technical Notes: I've been very lax about the passage of time in my fics, so I just kind of tacked Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) in here to show that it's now autumn. I'm not that bad about letting time stand still :-p
Author's Notes: Thanks, as always, to akaironoyoru and lilivanilla1 for reviewing, and to those of you still following this story :)
Chapter Six - Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk (The New Pornographers)
"I don't feel comfortable doing this," Mi-nam muttered. "Reporter Park is so not my type."
"Don't be a baby." Jeremy pressed the box into his hands. "This isn't a romantic gift; we're giving all the staffers the same thing."
"Maybe we should give her makeup."
"You don't give makeup during Chuseok!" the blond boy scoffed. "Besides, if she's not your type, why are you talking about giving her makeup?"
"Just get it over with, please, Mi-nam?" Tae-kyung sighed impatiently.
Dragging his feet to show his displeasure, Mi-nam nevertheless followed orders and made his way to the writer's office. "Knock, knock," he called as he knocked on her door.
The door opened a few moments later and the writer peeked out, adjusting her heavy-framed eyeglasses. "Yes?... Oh, Go Mi-nam," she greeted him when she saw him standing out in the hallway. "What can I do for you?"
"Nothing much," he answered with his most charming smile. "I just stopped by to give you this, as a thank-you from A.N.JELL. Chuseok is coming up, after all, and we wanted you to know that we really appreciate all your hard work."
As a reporter, Oh-lan was used to receiving these goodwill tokens, especially around the holidays, but she smiled with genuine gratitude. It was always nice to get some recognition. She opened the box and discovered the array of sangpyeon, rice cakes made especially for the holiday, inside. Although these were traditionally steamed over pine needles, the cakes in the box were still uncooked so that they wouldn't go bad right away.
"Thank you very much for the gift," she said. "My parents will enjoy them when I go home for the holidays."
"Will you be traveling far to visit your family?" Mi-nam asked.
"No, just to Yongin," she replied easily. With the holiday break coming up, everyone was discussing their plans. "How about you?"
"Oh, I'm not going anywhere. My sister will visit, but we'll still be working over the break."
"At least you'll still get to spend some time with your family."
"Yeah."
What was shaping up to be an awkward break in the conversation was saved when Oh-lan suddenly remembered something. "Oh! It's a good thing you stopped by," she said. "I almost forgot that I have something for you, too."
"For me?" Mi-nam asked, but she had already disappeared back into her office.
Soon, she was at the door again. "Here," she said, holding something out to him - the hair tie he had given her on the day of their one-on-one interview. "I've been meaning to return this, but kept forgetting."
Laughing, he shook his head. "You didn't have to give this back. It's just a rubber band."
"No, please take it. I don't like borrowing things from people and not returning them. Besides," she added piously, folding her hands like Mi-nyeo getting ready to say her prayers, "I have a whole bunch of these in my bag now. Stylist Wang has ordered me to stop using pens as hair accessories."
"She did?" Mi-nam asked in mock surprise. He knew that he was acting like an idiot, but the writer was joking around for once, and he was supposed to keep her in a good mood, wasn't he? "But if you don't have a pen in your hair, how will we know that it's you?"
"I'll probably still do that," she confided, "but at least I'll have something to use if Stylist Wang catches me."
"Good," he replied with a decisive nod. "We don't want to keep you being yourself."
"That's nice to hear." The writer smiled, and once again he wondered what it was about her that didn't make him think of nuns anymore.
"Uh..." he said then, just managing to remember that it was his turn to speak. "I should get going. Our break must be over by now."
"Of course," she said, preparing to back inside her office. "Thank you again for the gift."
Mi-nam thought that his bandmates would leave him alone after he delivered the rice cakes, but Jeremy, of course, had to spoil everything by announcing that he was going on a date with Su-jin before she went out of town with her parents for Chuseok. Thus, barely twenty-four hours after presenting her with the sangpyeon, he was herding the writer out of AN Entertainment and towards a book café down the street.
"I was in the middle of something!" she protested.
"I'm sure it can wait." He took her hand and tucked it in his elbow to keep her from running away; when she disengaged, he grabbed her wrist and held it fast. Currently, he was torn between venting his annoyance at Jeremy, and maintaining a smooth façade. Fortunately for Jeremy, the latter won out. Go Mi-nam never had a woman run away from him.
"What are we doing here?" she asked when they entered the café and he hustled her over to the coffee bar.
"Just think of it as a gesture of appreciation," he told her, releasing her arm and ordering a caffè Americano.
"But you guys already gave me rice cakes, just yesterday," she reminded him.
"That was from all of us. This is from just me. Now, what would you like? It's my treat."
Surprised, the writer asked for a latte. "You're not trying to make me give you special attention in the book, are you?" she asked suspiciously while the barista made their drinks.
"Of course not!" Mi-nam grinned. "Would you do it, though?"
"Of course not!"
"It didn't hurt to ask," he said with a good-natured shrug. "If you must know, I brought you here because I think you've been working too hard. Didn't you just ask me something related to work just now? My gift to you is an hour outside of the office, where you don't have to think about work. Actually," he added, "I'm making that a rule - for this one hour, you are not allowed to think about work."
For a moment, he thought she was going to argue, but instead she blinked and said softly, "Oh. Well... that sounds very nice."
It was Mi-nam's turn to be surprised. "Doesn't anyone ever tell you when you're working too hard?" They didn't really do that in A.N.JELL, but the bandmates nevertheless all looked out for each other; and besides his bandmates, he also had a sister who had worried about him ever since the day they were born.
She shrugged. "I live alone, so there's no one to take care of me but myself. I'm never sick, though," she added, somewhat defensively. "And I'm busy doing what I love, so I guess I'm doing a good job."
"I'm sure you are," he agreed, "but for one hour, I'll take care of you."
He paid for their coffees and two pastries, and carried their snacks to a table near the window. "Thank you," the writer said when they sat down. "This is very nice of you. I didn't know there was a place like this in the area... something tells me I'll visit here a lot from now on."
Mi-nam smiled. "I'm glad you like it, and I'm not surprised that you do." He looked around at the books displayed on shelves and tables around the room. "It looks like there's a lot here that would keep you busy."
As he looked around, he spied Su-jin stepping into the café with a guy that he assumed was Jeremy in disguise. The sight caused him to make a strangled noise in his throat. Fortunately, Jeremy and Su-jin heard it and saw him and the writer sitting inside.
Her back was to the door, so she didn't see them, but she was facing Mi-nam and saw the strange expression that crossed his face. "Is something wrong?" she asked.
Mi-nam shook his head, coughing for effect, as he watched the pair make their escape. "I'm fine," he assured her. "It was one of those strange things between a sneeze and a cough, and it got stuck in my throat. I should probably have some coffee."
The writer nodded seriously. "That sounds like a good idea."
He took a sip from his cup and watched her take a bite of her pastry. As she daintily licked frosting from her fingers, Mi-nam realized just what it was that had been bothering him about her appearance: even though everything about her seemed drab and severe at first glance, Park Oh-lan did have a pouty rosebud of a mouth. Even though she wasn't wearing any lipstick, her lips were pink and smooth, the top one just slightly fuller than the bottom. He wondered whether they tasted like strawberries.
Mi-nam blinked and shook his head. I shouldn't be thinking about that.
She looked up at him, and for a moment he feared that she had read his thoughts. However, she asked, "Are you feeling better?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah." He nodded jerkily. "Much better, thanks."
"That was close," Jeremy said as he and Su-jin entered a small restaurant further down the street.
"Who was the person with Go Mi-nam?" she asked.
"The reporter who's writing the book about us." A waiter came and seated them at a quiet table near the back. "Tae-kyung hyung suspects that she might be planning to write a tell-all book besides the one that President Ahn wants her to write, so we're making sure she doesn't see anything about our personal lives that might cause a scandal.
"But it's not because I'm ashamed of you," he added earnestly, taking her hand. "I just want to protect you. You don't know what fans are like."
"Oh, yes, I do," Su-jin said, looking down at their joined hands but, to Jeremy's delight, not making any effort to withdraw. "I saw what happened last year when news came out that Tae-kyung and Shin-woo had girlfriends. A lot of the die-hard fans went crazy."
He grinned. "Did you go crazy?"
"Of course not," she replied, rolling her eyes. "I wasn't so silly as to claim one of the A.N.JELL members as my exclusive property."
"Yeah? Well, I kind of like the idea of being your exclusive property."
Su-jin's cheeks turned pink and she busied herself with opening the menu. "Anyway, what I mean is that I understand what you're trying to do with the reporter; and if you're trying to protect your privacy from her, then I guess it's a good thing that Ha-neul has a photo shoot for our unni's sports campaign today."
"Yeah, otherwise, she and Shin-woo hyung would be along, too, and this would be a double date."
She was willing to admit that this was a date, but felt that things were starting to sound a bit too serious. "At least this way, there's only one guy here wearing a dumb disguise," she snickered. That day, Jeremy was wearing a dark wig and fake mustache. Like most of his other disguises, it looked ridiculous, but at least he wasn't wearing sunglasses indoors.
"Hey, if you want, I can rent out this whole restaurant," he suggested. "That way, we can have the place to ourselves and I can take this stuff off."
"Omo!" She shook her head vehemently. "Ha-neul would kill me. I already told you that she has this thing about you spending too much money on me. Just keep it on, it's cheaper."
Presently, the waiter reappeared to take their orders. Su-jin ordered a salad. "Are you on a diet again?" Jeremy asked her after placing his own order for a bacon cheeseburger and fries. "Haven't I already told you that you don't need to go on a diet?"
She gave him an irritated look. "First of all, this is my body and I'll take care of it however I like," she told him. "Second of all, I'm not eating a salad because I'm on a diet. Ha-neul and me are having dinner with our unni tonight, after the photo shoot, and I want to save space for that."
(A third reason, and the most important one, was that salads were easier to eat than sandwiches. Even though Jeremy didn't seem to care, Su-jin didn't want to eat like a pig in front of him. She wasn't going to tell him that, though.)
Fortunately, the answer that she did give seemed to satisfy him. "Good," he said with an approving nod. "Personally, it's not much fun to hug skinny girls."
"I wouldn't know about that. I don't hug girls that much."
He laughed briefly, giving her that half-smile that she still refused to admit did funny things to her insides, and wisely dropped the subject. "So, the campaign launch is in a few weeks," he said instead. "Will you be there?"
She nodded. "It's one of Kyung-soon unni's biggest projects for the foundation. A lot of us are coming to support her, and Ha-neul of course. How about you?"
"Of course we'll be there. Everyone who appeared in the ads is supposed to come, and we're performing the official song, too." He paused. "It's too bad that we need to pretend that we're just friends at the launch. It would have been nice to be open about our relationship."
Su-jin toyed with her water glass, moving it around in circles. She wanted to tell him that they didn't have a relationship to be open about, but he sounded so sincere and she didn't want to wreck the atmosphere - or worse, make a scene. "Well, you did say you're trying to hide your private lives from that reporter."
Suddenly, Jeremy brightened. "Hey, we don't have to totally hide it," he told her. "I just remembered that my mom called today to tell me that she and my dad are coming to Korea next month. You should meet them when they get here."
The water glass stopped moving. "Me?"
"Of course, you. It's only proper that they meet my girlfriend, right?"
"But I'm not-"
"That's enough!" he interrupted with a scowl. Even though they disagreed about a lot of things, largely because they both found it fun to argue, he wasn't going to accept anything less than a "yes" in this case. "Whatever you are, you're definitely the girl that I want to make my girlfriend," he told her firmly. "That's reason enough for you to have to meet my parents. And that's the final word on it."
Instead of getting angry at his heavy-handed approach, Su-jin just looked at him, surprised into silence... and was that a sparkle of admiration in her eyes?
Aha, Jeremy thought smugly, even though he kept a severe frown on his face. So Su-jin digs alpha males.
Then she started giggling. "I wish you could see the look on your face. That mustache makes you look so silly!"
On the other hand... he decided as she dug out her cell phone to take a picture, maybe the alpha male approach wasn't as helpful as he thought.
Not surprisingly, Mi-nam and Jeremy were the objects of much teasing on the ride home from the studio. "How were your daaaates?" Tae-kyung asked, smirking.
"Mine went very well, thank you," Jeremy answered happily. Mi-nam scowled at him, still annoyed over having his day disrupted, but the blond boy was either totally oblivious or gloating on purpose.
"Did Su-jin finally take you back for good?" Shin-woo wanted to know.
"Well, no, and we argued about that-"
"-as usual," Tae-kyung interjected.
"Yeah, but it was still very nice. I'm going to introduce her to my parents when they visit next month."
"Sounds serious."
"It is," the drummer confirmed with a smile. "And Su-jin said she's willing to meet them."
"That's a big deal," Shin-woo told him, reaching over to give him a friendly punch on the arm. (Mi-nam wished he could sock Jeremy one, too.) "Congratulations."
"How about you, Go Mi-nam?" Tae-kyung asked him. "How was your date?"
"It wasn't a date," he reminded the vocalist. "And she gave me homework."
Laughter filled the van. "You're kidding!"
"Nope." There was a rustle as Mi-nam kicked a bag at his feet. "She sales-talked me into buying some books that she thought I might like. Now I have to read them because she's probably going to ask me what I think of them."
"Maybe you'll have to write book reports, too." The guitarist tried and failed to suppress a laugh. "Sorry."
"I wouldn't be surprised if I did," he grumbled. "So, as you can see, I didn't go on a date - I attended a one-on-one lecture about books."
"At least you got some new books out of it," Tae-kyung said with obviously false brightness.
"And you helped me make some real progress with Su-jin," Jeremy added, still grinning from ear to ear. He sounded like he really appreciated Mi-nam's running interference with the writer, but the glint of mischief in his eyes said that he was also obviously enjoying the fact that he hadn't had to take one for the team. "You're a good friend, Go Mi-nam!"
"Yeah, yeah."
Mi-nam's bandmates teased him some more when they got home and discovered that most of his new books were written for young adults. "She's making you read baby books?" Jeremy laughed as they hung out in the kitchen, having late-night snacks and looking over the books. He ripped open a box of Chocopies, scattering them all over the counter and earning a disapproving look from Tae-kyung.
"They're not 'baby books,' they're for young adults," Mi-nam corrected him. He had known they would laugh at him, but fortunately this wasn't all his doing. "I know people our age are supposed to be too old for these things, but they're what Reporter Park recommended that I read. She knows we have really busy schedules, so I would be able to read these without taking up too much time."
"That makes sense," Shin-woo admitted as he poured himself some more tea. "I guess it might not matter what you read if you read for fun. The important thing is that you get to relax."
"And even though they're for kids, that doesn't mean the writers aren't good," the keyboardist went on. "Reporter Park says she still has her copies of these books, and she still buys these authors' new books when they come out."
"Hey, they're not all baby books," Tae-kyung observed, picking up the only "adult" one out of the pile of books and Chocopies.
"Wolf of the Plains," Shin-woo read, peering at the title.
"It's a novel about Genghis Khan," Mi-nam told them, happy to show off this book, at least. "Reporter Park has read a lot of books about him and she says this is the best one. She says there's a lot of action so you won't notice that it's so long."
"That sounds interesting. May I borrow it after you're finished?"
"Me, too!" Jeremy said, not to be outdone.
"I don't know how fast I'll be able to get through it," he told his bandmates as he unwrapped another Chocopie.
"Then we should read it together!" the drummer suggested. "Bring it to the studio and we'll read it to each other during breaks. That way, we all know what's happening."
"And Reporter Park will be happy when she sees us reading her book," Tae-kyung added, nodding wisely. "Either that or she'll make us form a book club, but the point is that it will distract her and keep her in a good mood."
"I guess she's a fan of Genghis Khan," Shin-woo remarked.
"I think her mother is," Mi-nam told him. "Reporter Park told me that she was sort of named after his mother."
Jeremy's eyes widened. "No wonder she's so scary!"
The keyboardist thought about the writer again. He thought about her boring black clothes and thick glasses, perpetual bad hair and unfeminine, strictly-business manner. Then he thought about her hands and how her face had lit up as she talked to him about her favorite books, and once again about that pouty rosebud mouth. "Actually," he said, "she's not so bad."