The image of Jiyong from Alina’s phone interfered with the image of the smiling Ji in front of the door. Suddenly his blood rushed to his cheeks and one could almost feel the fire in his eyes. Ji opened up his mouth to say the rightful Christmas cheer, but he couldn’t.

“What the Hell are you doing here?” Seunghyun cut him off. 

 “Umm… what?” Ji tried to look for a friendly look since he couldn’t find any in his friend.

“Nothing…” Seunghyun tried to smile as if really nothing happened, but all he could do was an unpleased grin. “Please come in! Merry Christmas…” he barely muttered.

“Hyung… is anything wrong?” Ji whispered looking for his friend’s eyes, which seemed a little more dazed than usual.

“No, not at all… here, let me help you…” Seunghyun took the boxes in his hands so Ji could take off his coat and hang it on the wooden hanger.

“Ah, Jiyong-gi!” his mother stretched out her hands to hug him when they both came inside the big room. “I am so glad you could come!”

“Yeah… me too…” Ji said looking after Seunghyun as he placed the boxes around the tree.

Seunghyun really wanted to ignore Alina pretending he didn’t saw her right in the exact same place where he left her, next to the big Christmas tree, but he really couldn’t – her big, bright eyes almost froze him in place.

“Is everything alright?” she asked so slowly that he wouldn’t even hear her if she wouldn’t shyly grab his sleeve.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” he answered as cold as he could trying to keep his eyes away from her.

She lowered her head and let go of him.

He turned to look after her thinking that she must’ve turned around and left, but she was still there and her teary eyes forced a warm smile on his face when his conscience hit him hard. All he wanted right now was to ask for an explanation, to fight with her, but her lost glance threw his already too confused and twisted thoughts into an even bigger chaos.

“You?...” Ji’s voice made his body to react again to the environment.  “What is she doing here?” he whispered knowing she couldn’t understand him.

“Why?” Seunghyun snapped at him but right before his answer, a group of elderly men and women led by his mother approached them  and practically cornered him.

Jiyong grabbed Alina’s wrist and made her follow him, something that didn’t escaped Seunghyun’s fast eyes.

“Come!” Jiyong said dragging her around until they reached the kitchen. “What are you doing here?” he asked as soon as they entered.

“I really don’t know..” Alina answered with whiny voice. “I just want to go home… “ she mostly whispered.

“Oh, that would be impossible now, on this weather… “ Ji started smiling.

“Ani… I just wanna go home. My home…” tears started falling and soft hiccups silenced Ji for a couple of seconds. He couldn’t take it anymore and slowly grabbed her chin in between his fingers and made her look at him.

Seunghyun was about to enter the kitchen when he saw them, so he quickly turned left to hide  behind the door. He peeped inside just to see how Ji’s lips gently lowered over hers. He clenched his fists and shut tight his eyes.

‘So she was just using me to get to him??!’ he wanted to think but her voice wouldn’t let him finish:

“I told you to never do that again!!” Alina yelled pushing Jiyong aside. “Don’t, never…” she said again when he tried to calm her down. She quickly turned around to face the door but she froze after just three steps: Seunghyun stared at her with a very unpleased look.

“Oh, hyung…” Ji wanted to say something but suddenly he couldn’t find any reason for what he should be apologizing. 

“Do you know who I am?” were the only words that left Seunghyun’s uptight lips, shocking everyone, including him. This wasn’t what he prepared to say. He opened up his mouth to speak again but he just couldn’t, images of Ji’s pictures in her phone and the kiss he just witnessed froze his mind.

“Hyung…?”

“What?” Alina merely whispered, not because she didn’t heard him but because she simply lost her voice. Like a thunder strike just hit her, in the back of her head she visualized the moment in the car when he took away her phone. She instantly regretted for feeling so lazy last night and didn’t finish deleting the pictures and the songs… Two hot tears burnt her face when he indeed took out her phone from his pocket.

“Tell me! Did you?...” he asked again a little more wired.

“Hyung…” Ji tried again to speak.

“Stay out of it, Kwon Jiyong! It’s none of your business!” he froze Ji and kept on browsing the phone.

Alina just stared at him, tears pouring down her face, but she still found his trembling fingers extremely hot as they wiped the screen uncontrollable. Oh, God, she just couldn’t lose everything right now! Yes! Of course she knew who they were! She was their biggest fan.. well actually to be completely honest he only pirated their albums and everything else because she never had money to buy one, but still she was their biggest fan and she really did know Seunghyun’s opinion regarding a date with his fan… This was the main reason why she hid the truth from him and why she really shouldn’t have been so damn lazy last night and delete everything!

“Actually!...” Seunghyun’s voice brought her back “It’s ALL of your business!...” he said stretching out the phone to Ji’s face.

“What’s that?” Ji pretended to not understand the picture of himself covered in hearts.

“It’s her phone!” Seunghyun answered in disbelief. 

“So?...” Ji kept his poker face.

Seunghyun ceased to look for understanding in his friend and turned to face her again.

“Back then… at the hotel… when you entered my room… Did you knew who I was?...”

“No!” Alina’s fast answer surprised them both.

“But then why…” Seunghyun started to back away.

“Park… Park Goo!...” she suddenly yelled happy that this thought came through, and really fast went back to her teary eyes and whispering voice: “…she told me to look for this band, Bigbang…”

“What’s Park Goo?” Seunghyun asked.

“Not what, but who” Jiyong said. “She’s a maid at the hotel…” he started explaining but the still burning fire in Seunghyun’s eyes shut him up.

“How would you know that?” he asked in a rough tone.

“Mianhae…” Ji raised his hands up like he surrendered.     

Because she knew she couldn’t let him organize his thoughts, Alina quickly began talking again, being extra careful to maintain her crying voice:

“…She and this other girl downloaded everything in my phone… and they tried to make me memorize everyone… but I couldn’t…” she discreetly checked on Seunghyun’s face and tears began forming again when he caught her eyes: “Have I done something that bad? I mean I know that you’re a celebrity, that’s why I never wanted to… ”

“But then…” he interrupted her “why do you have an account on the official forum since three years ago?”

“Eh?...” she almost forgot that she was supposed to be sad, but luckily Ji’s giggles reminded her just in time, before Seunghyun finished accessing the forum and point the screen in her face.

“You thought that was me?” she really congratulated herself for not using her real face as the profile picture, “…That’s Park…” she got to say before he turned the phone off.

“I… I thought… I’m sorry” Seunghyun said handing over the phone and simply left without any other word.

Alina and Jiyong exchanged a quick look. Before she could make any movement whatsoever, Ji’s soft laughter blocked her.

“Don’t stress too much, you’ll understand his ways over time” he smiled and pat her shoulder. “Fighting!” he encouraged her giving his fist up in the air and winking at her.

“Huh?” was it possible that he ‘read’ her?

“Umm…” he said right before he exited the kitchen “…mianhae, I really had no idea he was your bias… usually girls fancy more about me” he laughed.

“What?...”

“Now don’t let his freeze for too long” he said looking over the big window behind her.

She turned to look over there too and followed for a short while a dark silhouette crossing by.

“What do you…” she started turning back to face Jiyong, but he wasn’t there anymore. She rolled around but still he wasn’t nowhere in the kitchen. She took a step forward to take a look inside the living room. She did found him in there, talking and laughing with Seunghyun’s sister and her boyfriend. She shook her head almost smiling, then she remembered about Seunghyun. She quickly turned around to look for him from the window but before reaching it, her eyes hit something on the table: two small yogurt cans, the ones she used to eat, were carefully placed there. She took them both and exited the kitchen in a haste, but Jiyong’s eyes stopped her. He winked at her and signaled to get outside. She nodded and smiled. In less than a second she grabbed her coat and exited the glass door. She followed the barely seeable footsteps on the snow and reached a wooden gazebo.

Seunghyun was sitting there all alone with his head and face covered by a big, furry hood and nothing more but a glass of wine in his hands. He looked like a monk saying a prayer to his god (Bachus in this case) with his hands bound on the glass and his head down.

“Are you angry with me?” Alina’s soft voice surprised him.      

He took off his hood but didn’t look at her.

“Ani… I’m more angry at me…” he said after a rather long pause.

“Why are you sitting here all alone? Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m not. I like coming here to clear up my mind…”

“May I take a place in there?” she interrupted him.

“In my mind?” he turned to face her.

“On the bench” she smiled and waited for him to move a little to a side. She sat next to him and pushed away the glass in his hands. He looked at her with wide eyes and an unknown smile on his face while she replaced de wine with one can of yogurt. He looked at it for a while and her eyes from the first day they met appeared in front of him.

Alina couldn’t understand why he stared at her like that, but she was determined to resist his glare. He smiled lowering first his eyes.

“You’re the first one…” he mumbled smiling.

“First on what?” she felt really proud of herself but kept her true feeling behind a soft smile.

“Saranghaeyo…” he cut her off.

“Huh?...” was the only sound she could render, thinking her own mind was playing tricks on her.

“You have no idea of what I said, do you?” he smiled a little relieved but somehow disappointed.  

“That’s the first word I learned in Korean…” her cheeks started boiling already not knowing what to do anymore.

His hand on her face froze her more than the blizzard managed to do it in all of her 20 years on this earth. His lips over hers melted her faster than an ice cube on a flame and lucky it was below 0° outside otherwise she couldn’t ever explain the unnatural red color of her face.

‘Never doubt the love of a fan… he loved you since the beginning without even knowing you and no matter what he’ll always be there for you’ ...maybe she’ll tell him this someday, but not this day. Today nothing else mattered, not the howling blizzard nor the colored, dancing lights that set off the house’s impressive outline joyfully singing “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all around”…

 

 

 

THE END