Hours had past, and Vincent and I were still in the recording studio with BIGBANG. At this point, G-Dragon and Taeyang were with the recording equipment playing the music background of some of the tracks we were trying to translate. Daesung had fallen asleep on the couch, which didn’t surprise me because it was midnight. Vincent and I were crowded at one of the computers, listening to both the If You Instrumental and Korean version as we tried to come up with lyrics, sharing a set of earbuds. TOP was at the other computer closest to Vincent, and I was pretty sure he was online shopping. Seungri had found another chair from another recording room and was sitting next to me, watching Vinny and I at work, asking us questions every now and then.

“Okay, so I feel like we need change Top’s part.” I told my brother after reading the lyrics we had. “Look at it. I don’t think it goes with the song at all.”

“Then what do you think? I can’t get the lyrics to go with anything.” Vinny groaned and leaned back in his chair. He pushed the keyboard over to me.

I pressed play on the music track and listened. Then, it came to me, so I typed:

So now you’re saying goodbye

Nothing I can do to change your mind

And I’m sitting here like a fool

Guess I never thought that one day I’d be losing you

I leaned back and nodded. “There.”

Vinny leaned forward and read. “Nat, I don’t know.”

“Try it out loud.” I shrugged. “Put the lyrics with the music.”

Vincent cleared his throat and sang TOP’s part with the music in our ears.

I got confused when I saw all of BIGBANG look at Vinny as he stopped singing. Vinny looked at each of them, equally confused. “What, did it ?”

“Your voice, man. You have a good voice.” G-Dragon noted.

“You can sing and dance. You are an idol.” Seungri said next.

Vinny chuckled and shook his head. “Uh, no. I mean, Nat and I did choir throughout school, but I mean that’s it.” Color rose on his cheeks, and he nodded to the 3 empty six packs. “We have a problem, guys. There’s no more beer. What do we do?”

“Isn’t there a liquor store down the street?” I asked. “I can go get some more.”

“You shouldn’t go alone. A girl like you should not be alone in Chicago.” Seungri shook his head. “I will go with you.”

G-Dragon shook his head. “She shouldn’t be alone with you in Chicago, either.”

I felt the color rise to my face as everyone else laughed at G-Dragon’s jab. Seungri snapped something back to the leader in Korean, and G-Dragon let out a groan and said something back. Then, G-Dragon clapped his hands together once. He looked at me. “I have an idea!”

“What?” I asked, sitting up.

G-Dragon pointed to Vinny’s left. “Chemistry test! Bonding! Top-ah, go with Natalia to get more drinks.”

I couldn’t help it. My eyes got really wide. “Um, I mean… I can go by myself. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

Taeyang shook his head. “No. You and Top go.”

I sighed and stood. “This really isn’t necessary.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw TOP get up too. My heart rate picked up and I knew my face was bright red. “Our chemistry is fine.”

“Now, I expect flirting, you two.” Vincent teased. “You know, for dance chemistry purposes.”

I looked at my brother, my eyebrows furrowed. I was about to have a comeback, but G-Dragon spoke up. “Yah, I expect you two to fall in love by the time you’re back.”

Oh my God….

I kept my head down as the guys continued laughing and TOP said something in Korean to G-Dragon and Taeyang. Taeyang said something back, but the only words I could pick up were girl, pretty, and bastard.

We walked out of the recording studio, and I glanced at TOP. He smiled and shook his head. “They are crazy.”

God, his accent was irresistible.

I let out a laugh and nodded. “Y-yeah. I blame my brother. He started it.”

We waited for the elevator in silence, and it opened. I stepped in first and TOP followed. He ruffled the front of his hair, and I tried my best not to stare in amazement. How could one human being be so perfect?

TOP noticed I was staring though. He looked at me, one eyebrow raised, a small smile on his face. “You okay?”

My eyes widened with embarrassment. I quickly looked away. “Y-yeah! Sorry. Yeah I’m good.”

He chuckled. “You scared?”

The elevator doors opened and I glanced at him. “Scared? Of what? Am I scared of you?”

He nodded.

I shook my head a little more furiously than I probably should have. “No! Of course not! Why would I be scared of you?”

Besides the fact you’re TOP of BIGBANG and you’re extremely attractive and I’ve had a crush on you since I was 16 and if you wanted to just ravage me in the restroom we are walking past right now I’d totally let you.

“You’re lying.” TOP smirked again.

“I am not.” I sighed. We walked out into the crisp fall air. The streets were still pretty busy at midnight.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw TOP reach into his pocket, shake some kind of box, and pull something out.

He put the cigarette to his lips, and held out the box to me before lighting his. I shook my head. “N-no thanks. I don’t smoke.”

He nodded and put the pack back into his pocket before lighting the cigarette that was in between his lips. I usually hated smoking, but for some reason even when TOP did that it was attractive.

“So do you guys like it here in Chicago?” I cleared my throat and looked at TOP.

He shrugged, then nodded before removing the cigarette from his lips. He blew out a puff of smoke. “It’s cool.”

I couldn’t help it, partly because of my own interest as a fan and partly because I wanted to know if there was a better way to communicate. “Why are your answers so short? You’re quiet.”

TOP smiled shyly and shook his head. “Sorry. My English. It’s not good.” He looked at me. “I can… listen more.”

I was guessing he meant he can listen better than he could speak it. God, it was adorable. I nodded. “That’s okay. I was just wondering. So you understand what people say more than you speaking it?”

TOP nodded.

We got to the liquor store. TOP put out his cigarette before we entered the store.

I smiled at the man behind the counter and we walked back to the coolers.

I looked at TOP, who was looking into the coolers. I let out a breath. “So, should we just get more beer?”

TOP shrugged. “Yes.”

I opened one of the coolers and pulled out two more six packs of Bud Light.

TOP looked at me and nodded to the beer. “You can’t, yeah?”

It was confusing understanding him sometimes.

I was guessing he was referring to the fact I had a gluten allergy. I nodded. “Right. I am going to go look at the wine coolers.”

I walked to the cooler area with the wine coolers. As I was looking at my choices, some hip-shaking song came on. Without realizing it, I started moving my hips to the beat.

I heard a deep chuckle behind me. My face went red, and I stopped dancing. I turned around and looked at TOP, who was smirking at me. “S-sorry.” I reached in the cooler and grabbed some Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

I turned back to TOP and watched him look around the store. We were the only ones in the store besides the worker, who was on his cell phone.

TOP shrugged. “I can, too.” He turned his back to me, and when I thought he was going to walk away to look at more liquor, I was wrong.

He suddenly sprung into BinguTop, holding his arms out from his sides and moving his hips in a circular motion, like I had seen him do in so many YouTube videos.

Yes, I was checking out his as he did this.

I started laughing and covered my mouth. TOP turned back to face me and smiled, back to normal charismatic TOP. He walked over to me and took both of the Bud Lights from my hands.

We walked up to the counter in silence and put our product on it to be checked out.

I reached into my Coach cross-body bag to grab my wallet.

“I got it.” TOP told me, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.

“Oh, okay.” I nodded.

We paid for our drinks, grabbed them, and walked out into the brisk air. I should have brought a jacket. “It’s freezing.” I muttered, rubbing my arm carrying the Mike’s with my free hand.

TOP looked at me and nodded towards me. “Your tattoos. They real?”

For some reason, I looked at my right shoulder, like the cursive script was brand new. It wasn’t. I had my right shoulder tattoo since I was eighteen. It was my first tattoo and was simple cursive script that read Se si ha fede, avra la dolce vita. It was Italian for if you have faith, you will have the sweet life. I had wanted the la dolce vita part due to G-Dragon having his own dolce vita tattoo.

“Yeah, they are.” I cleared my throat. “I actually want some more too, but with my college major, I couldn’t because it frowns upon visible tattoos.”

“College?”

I nodded again. “I, um, I was a nursing major before this. I was going to be a nurse.”

“A nurse? In a hospital?” TOP looked at me. We locked eyes, and I had to look away.

I nodded. “Yeah. I wanted to go into pediatrics. Work with kids. But now I’m doing this.”

TOP nodded. “More fun? This?”

I giggled and nodded. “Oh yeah. A lot more fun.”

We got back to the agency and to the recording studio.

I opened the door to the recording studio and walked in first, TOP following me. Inside the room, Daesung was now awake, sitting in my spot between my brother and Seungri. Taeyang was in the recording booth, recording the English lyrics we had written for If You. G-Dragon was at all of the equipment, doing what he did better than any artist I knew: producing.

Seungri was the first to notice us. “You guys took a long time.” He commented.

“They were gone for twenty minutes, Seungri.” G-Dragon sighed and shook his head.

“We have more drinks.” I set my six pack on the table, then sat down on the couch.

Vincent spun around in his chair to face me. “We got If You finished.”

“I can hear that.” I nodded to the recording booth that Taeyang was in. Without me asking, Vinny grabbed a Mike’s and tossed it to me.

I twisted it open and took a long swig. My face still felt hot from spending some alone time with TOP.

“So you guys drink,” Seungri commented. He stood and walked over to the couch, taking a place next to me. “So do you party?”

I looked at Vinny, then looked back at Seungri. “I mean, I wouldn’t call it partying. We would go out to bars or have bonfires with friends.”

“Bonfire?” Seungri leaned back and crossed his arms, watching me.

I turned so I was facing him more. “Yeah. You know, a bonfire? It’s where you have a fire in the middle and you and your friends just hang out around it. Talk and dance and such. Have fun.”

Seungri laughed. “That is fun? Where are these bonfires?”

I shrugged. “We used to have them at our house. Or a friend’s house.”

“Nat’s ex had a friend that would have them too.” Vincent added.

Daesung had been listening to us during all of this too. “Ex? Boyfriend ex?”

“So you have boyfriend?” Seungri asked.

I shook my head. “No no no. I did. We broke up back in June.” I had been dating this guy, Jacob, for over a year until this past June. We had lived an hour and a half apart, and he was three years older than me. Things just weren’t working out between him being almost too family-oriented, never allowing me to be the priority, and he still lived at home with his mother at 24 years old. In most cases, I would be fine with that, but he had already graduated college and had not put his degree to use no matter how much I tried to help him. So, I broke up with him. I turned my attention to Seungri. “He was your age.”

“You like older men?” Seungri asked me.

I was shocked by his question. Why would he ask me that? I could tell BIGBANG weren’t as surprised; G-Dragon shook his head and gave a glare toward Seungri, Daesung had burst into laughter, and TOP had chuckled and shook his head.

Come on, Natalia. Let’s work on the confidence.

I shrugged. “It depends on maturity, really. But, yes, I usually do like older men.”

“You guys were serious?” Daesung asked me.

I couldn’t lie; my heart still ached when I thought of Jake. He was my first in a lot of things. We talked about kids and marriage, too. He just ended up lacking the motivation I had to get our future going. On top of that, the stress of nursing school and the stress of dealing with why he wasn’t do anything to better himself made me sick; in the span of us dating, especially in the last months, I had been diagnosed with high blood pressure, irritable bowel syndrome, and peptic ulcer disease. They were all stress-induced.  I couldn’t take it anymore.

I nodded. “We were.”

“You miss him?” Seungri leaned forward, resting his arms on his legs. He was really close to me, and I knew my heart was racing.

I cleared my throat and shrugged. “Sometimes. I miss having the connection with someone. I miss more of the actions and things we would do than missing him personally.”

It got quiet, and then I realized how that probably sounded, and the looks from Daesung, Seungri, and Taeyang (who had stepped out of the recording booth) further confirmed my fear. I shook my head furiously. “No! Not like that! Not those kinds of actions!”

Vincent started laughing hysterically, slapping his knee. “Holy , Natalia! God, you just love telling them everything, don’t you?”

My face was burning as I shook my head furiously. I couldn’t look at any of the BIGBANG members. “I did not mean it like that!!! I meant, like, dates. Holding hands. Cuddling. I mean yeah, I miss that other stuff too but it’s not what I meant!”

WHY DID I JUST SAY THAT?????

Luckily, Seungri and Daesung started to laugh. I put my head in my hands miserably. I couldn’t believe that I just said that.

“If you miss the other stuff, I can help!” Seungri announced.

Wait, what?!?

Did Seungri just outright admit he wanted to have with me? He barely knew me!

“Seungri-ah!!!!” G-Dragon snapped from his seat. I kept my head in my hands. I couldn’t look at any of them. I also couldn’t take how close Seungri was to me, so, I tipped over to my left, falling on the rest of the couch. I grabbed a pillow and buried my face in it.

As G-Dragon, Seungri, Taeyang, and Daesung all bickered back and forth in Korean, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned my head and pushed my hair back, and was surprised to see my drink held out to me, the one offering being TOP. “Drink. You need it.” He smirked.

That damn smirk….

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A/N: Here's the song inspiration for the English translation of If You: