I laugh. Before I can reply, there’s a frantic knock on my door that makes me sit upright in bed. The knocking gets more urgent, and I quickly roll out of bed, shouting, “Just a second!”

I open the door to find Sunhee standing there, looking breathless, as if she ran to my room. “Rachel, did you see the news?”

“The news?”

She holds up her phone. “We’re blowing up on Reveal.”

Immediately, my stomach sinks. Shit. Reveal is one of Korea’s most notorious tabloids. If they’re writing about Girls Forever, it can’t be good.

“Apparently, Ari, Sumin, and Jiyoon were photographed by a fan last night while they were out to dinner,” Sunhee says, passing me her phone to look at the article. “The fan posted it online, and the tabloids back home jumped on it. They were with three unknown guys, and Reveal is speculating that they’re secret boyfriends.”

I scroll through Sunhee’s phone as she anxiously chews her lower lip. Just like she said, there’s a photo of Ari, Sumin, and Jiyoon sitting in a restaurant booth with three guys. You can’t make out the guys’ faces in the photo, but the girls are smiling and laughing as they eat and drink. It could be a triple date… but it could also just be any other platonic dinner hangout. It’s hard to tell.

“This is going to look bad for the whole group. Mina is going to flip out,” Sunhee says.

“Forget about Mina. What about the execs?” I ask.

“Ari, Sumin, and Jiyoon are in a meeting with Mr. Han right now,” Sunhee says. Voices come from down the hall, and she swivels her head in their direction. “They must be done. Come, on! Let’s go find out how it went.”

I stick my head out of my room to see Ari, Sumin, and Jiyoon coming down the hall. Ari and Sumin are bickering as always (something about who interrupted who when they were talking to Mr. Han), but Jiyoon looks paler than that time she accidentally choked on a rice cake. She’s genuinely distraught.

My gut knots itself up. This is not good.

Before Sunhee and I can say anything, Jiyoon shakes her head. “Not here,” she whispers, her voice rougher at the edges than usual. “My room. Everyone’s waiting there.”

We quickly follow them into Jiyoon’s room. Lizzie, Eunji, and Youngeun are sitting cross-legged on the bed while Mina’s pacing by the window. As soon as she sees us, Mina storms toward us, arms crossed.

“So?” she says. “How much shit are we in because of you three?”

“Calm down, it’s fine,” Ari says, holding up her hands. “Mr. Han said that DB will deny that there’s anything romantic going on between us and those boys. He said it should be easy enough since there wasn’t anything specifically incriminating. No photos of kissing or anything.”