I walk along Lake Shore Boulevard by the water, and stop at the Toronto Music Garden and sit on a bench, fighting against reading all the sketchy online articles about me.

Instead, I just play some City and Colour and hope Dallas Green's voice will help calm me down.

I sent Dot a picture of where I'm sitting and wait for her.

People pass by me. No one recognizes me. As they should.

This will all blow over, right? It's just an internet thing.

Finally, I see my cousin walking my way, waving frantically at me.

"Check it, you're famous," she says, sitting beside me, and throws a pile of magazines.

"You bought the trashy magazines?" I ask picking one up.

The headline reads Boy This is How It Starts: Min Jae-sang Out With Mystery Girl. When I flip through the pages, there aren't just pictures of us kissing. There are pictures of us chatting together too. He's smiling at me, while I'm talking to him.

He looks as good in pictures as he does in real life.

The pictures are clearly misleading, when you know what I was talking about. Still, if I didn't know any better, I'd believe the trashy magazine too, that we were out together.

"Of course I bought them! I bought a bunch of them. When this all blow over, you'll want to keep them as souvenirs. You'll be able to tell your grandkids that once upon a time you were cool and you kissed a super star. No one will believe you otherwise," Dot says, bringing me back to the present.

"No one should believe me even with that proof. All of this makes no fucking sense," I tell her, and throw the magazine back on the pile.

"Tell me about it. I can't believe you kissed living god Jae-sang."

"Are you in loooove with him or something?" I tease her.

"Nine Knots is my life."

I frown. "You never mentioned it before."

"Because you listen to death metal, so like, our musical interests don't align."

"A Day to Remember is not death metal," I tell her rolling my eyes.

Dot waves her hand, "Whatever, screamy people."

"So, you're a fan?"

"Yeah," she says, but like, in a breathy way, that means of course you fucking noob.

"So, I should have asked for an autograph?" I ask smirking.

I can't believe I'm able to find something amusing in the mist of this ridiculous situation. Well, I can, really, all of this is amusing. None of this makes sense.

I shouldn't be freaking out or crying, I should be laughing really.

This doesn't happen in real life.

"Oh yeah, totally," Dot replies, like she's trying to be joking, but she actually means it. "Anyway... was he really nice?"

I frown. "Huh?"

"Naree, you fucking boob, you kissed one of my idols. You sat beside him. I assume you talked with him. Please let me live vicariously through you."

I barely talked with him. Sure, I kinda had a conversation with him, but I've also had old people in the bus talk to me for longer than I talked with this famous boy. "Yeah, I guess he was nice. It felt natural, talking with him. It wasn't awkward. Being a super star probably helps with your people skills."

"How did he smell?" my cousin randomly asks.

I choke on air. "What?"

"How did he smell?" she repeats, like she sees nothing wrong with that question.

"You're being a weirdo right now."

"Answer the question Naree Morin."

"I didn't sniff him, I don't know," I answer defensively, raising my hands. "He smelt like detergent? I don't know, who goes around smelling strangers?"

"You're useless."

"What? I had no idea what was going on at the time. I was just freaking out over Miller making a fool of himself beside me. I didn't have time to analyse the dimple smile of the cute guy sitting beside me."

"Oh, you saw the dimples."

I roll my eyes. That's the only thing she heard? "Seriously?"

She doesn't hear my discouraged tone. "Didn't you just want to squish his cheek and tell him he's pretty?"

I made a circle motion towards her. "Issuuuuuues."

"You're useless. What about the other guys sitting with him? Did you talk to them? Were Matias and Aleksey cuddling? What about Scotty and Thomas? And Xu Feng was sitting beside Jae, did you talk with him?" my cousin rambles on, leaving me confused.

"I have no idea who you're talking about... I mean, the Scotty dude I think Jae-sang mentioned him. He said he would probably embarrass me more than Miller did."

Dot lets out a loud whining sound. "I can't believe you were sitting right beside six of the nine members of Nine Knots and didn't know. You were sitting beside my favourite ship of all time!"

"Huh?"

"Aleksias! Aleksey and Matias! They love each other okay! My gay heart cannot control the overflow of emotion I have when I see them together."

"You've completely lost me."

"You're going to need a Nine Knot crash course," Dot says, shaking her head.

"No, what I need is for papers to not put my face on their gossip pages," I say, picking up a trashy magazine and shaking it at her face, "and for people on the internet to leave me alone. I have nothing to do with Jae-sang or Nine Knots."

Dot pats my shoulder. "Honestly, your only hope is Tenth Knot."

I stare at my cousin. "Tenth Knot?"

"The queen of our fandom."

"I don't get it."

"There's this girl who writes Nine Knots fanfics and like basically rules the fandom. She's scarily right about a lot of things when it comes to the guys, so everyone sort of listens to her, even the crazier fans," she explains.

I narrow my eyes, not sold. "That sounds too good to be true."

"But it's real. She's like an OG fan. She could probably help. If she tells people to calm the fuck down, they might."

"And how do I contact this Tenth Knot?"

Dot gives me a strained smile. "That's kind of the problem. You can probably DM her on Instagram, or maybe on her Wattpad account, but I have no idea if she'll answer."

I snort. "So my only hope is a teenager writing smutty fanfics in her basement that might never see my messages?"

"Hey!," Dot slaps my arm. "Respect the queen. It's not smutty fanfic, it's tasteful fiction."

I laugh. "So gay porn?"

"Bitch! She writes heartfelt and tragic stories, with twist and turns and—"

I cut off my cousin, "and orgies between the members."

Dot slaps my arm again. "You really didn't deserve being kissed by Jae-sang."

I keep laughing. "Is he really that perfect?"

"Oh my god, there's nothing to do with you," my cousin whines, raising her arms to the sky. She gets up. "Let's go shopping, you need to do some research," she says, nudging me with her feet to get up too.

"What?"

"You have albums to buy honey. If you kissed him, the least you can do is buy his music."

I cross my arms over my chest. "I will not."

"You will, it's the price to pay for kissing Jae-sang."

"It feels very expensive to have kissed him. Also, I'd like to point out that I did not kiss him, HE KISSED ME."

My cousin smirks. "Even worse. You'll need to buy some of their merch too."

____________________

Hello hello! How did you enjoy this chapter? I really like Dorothy, she's adorable! :P

Also, did you like the Twitter thread too? XD I decided to put two today. You can't see their full handles which is a shame. XD I hope you're enjoying them. I'm trying to mix up stuff so you can see different sides to everything. I need you to be fans of Nine Knots. hehehe ;P

Alright. I'll go now. Thank you sooooo much for supporting this story. Honestly, it's the nicest thing you can do for me right now. XD

See you tomorrow! <3