Note for all: Reservation is made under the name Kim Yumi. A private room for four has been booked at the back of the restaurant. When your time comes, head straight there, no pit stops!

Eunji and I plan our double date to a tee. And I mean to a tee. As anxious as I am about putting all four of us in a room together, I’ll admit, secretly planning it all with Eunji is actually really fun. It feels like we’re trying to figure out how to execute an Ocean’s-level scheme. We spend hours looking up different restaurants with private rooms in inconspicuous neighborhoods, before ultimately settling on Marigold House. It’s nice, but out of the main flow of things, tucked away in Gangbuk. It’s still a risk, no doubt about it, but I feel pretty good about Marigold House—after all, the staff there has kept bigger secrets than this—rumor has it the prime minister held top secret meetings here when he needed to negotiate a major piece of legislation without it being leaked. Plus, Eunji knows the hostess from elementary school and swears she’ll be cool. I’m still a little nervous about the whole situation, but Eunji and I have done our best to make this double date as covert as possible. And I take comfort in the fact that if Alex and I can manage to evade road-raging paparazzi in Hong Kong, we should be safe grabbing a quiet dinner here in Seoul.

It’s a whole ordeal coordinating schedules so the four of us arrive at different times and are not spotted together. Alex is a saint for going along with all of it, and keeps insisting that he doesn’t mind all the cloak-and-dagger stuff. He’s actually really excited about meeting Eunji. I know it’s because I’ve specifically kept my relationship with Alex private, but it’s still strange to realize none of my groupmates have met Alex, or vice versa—that two huge parts of my life don’t overlap at all.

Finally, the night arrives. I spend way too long on my outfit, finally deciding on a simple white T-shirt, black leather leggings, and cropped moto jacket—sadly, it’s far more important to look inconspicuous than to dress up.

Part A of Mission Double Date goes without a hitch. We arrive at staggered times, exactly as planned, and within twenty minutes (okay, so not exactly as planned) of stepping out of my nondescript black car, I find myself sitting around the dinner table with Alex, Eunji, and Geonwu, amazed that we’re actually pulling this off.

I feel like I’ve entered some kind of parallel universe as we laugh and talk over plates of black cod, charcoal-grilled chicken drizzled with house-made chili pepper sauce, wild mushrooms nestled over sticky barley rice, and bluefin tuna layered with thin slices of Korean pear.