“Key, that isn't very nice,” Eun-Ae laughed as her boyfriend wriggled back through the small opening in the pillow foot wielding a simple black marker. A devilish grin was on his face, a perfect indicator of the mischief he was going to commit under the shadow of night. He simply flashed her an impish smirk before pulling the cap of the marker off with a soft pop, wriggling his fingers as his dark eyes searched the floor of the tent for his first victim.

After the exhausting pillow fight, the boys had drifted off to sleep one by one, until only Eun-Ae and Key remained awake. Per the unspoken party rules, Key had retrieved the black marker to scribble all over his unaware friends' faces. As Eun-Ae watched, half in amusement and half in guilt, as Key fell upon the snoozing Taemin with devilish glee, scrawling childish doodles and comical phrases across his unblemished skin. “Key!” she scolded him, and as Jonghyun stirred due to the high volume of her voice, the boy hissed loudly at her and waved a hand as a signal to lower her voice.

“Be quiet, would you? You're gonna wake him up!” Eun-Ae pursed her lips, debating whether to disrupt the boy’s prank or simply allow it to happen. I don't want to ruin his fun, she decided after a moment, a small smile curling onto her lips. He looked happy, after all, and that was enough.

After he finished his handiwork, he tossed the marker aside with a satisfied sigh and plopped down beside her, reveling in his own mischief. The other boys were none the wiser, sleeping peacefully as they bore a menagerie of scribbles on their peaceful faces. “Classic,” he sniggered, and Eun-Ae lighted lightly and shoved him in the shoulder. “Ow! What was that for?”

“They’re gonna get you when they wake up and find that!” As he rubbed his shoulder tenderly, pretending like she had hurt him, he flashed her another one of those grins.

“I’ll blame it on you,” he said and wriggled his eyebrows at her, causing her to snatch up her pillow and hit him over the head with it.

“You wouldn't dare!” she gasped, continuing to hit him even as he swatted at her arms in an attempt to stave off the onslaught, but they both froze when Minho mumbled something about waffles and rolled over. They remained rigid until the boy's breathing settled down into a steady rhythm; slowly, she lowered the pillow safely to the ground lest she awaken the boys and cause a ruckus. “You wouldn't dare,” she repeated more quietly, her face flushed.

“Nah. I wouldn't dare.” Though it was a simple answer, something in his voice made her eyes widen and her heart hum with excitement. Her face flushed further when she glanced at him to find that he was gazing at her with that heat-filled, lustful gaze that always made her both shudder with apprehension and tremble with excitement. As those dark eyes gazed into the depths of her soul, holding her body prisoner, Key crept closer to her; she leaned back instinctively as his arms slid on either side of her, pinning her in place as he loomed over her with that seductive smirk playing over his lips. All she could do was gaze up at him, like a meek mouse caught in the grasp of a hungry house cat, as his face approached hers. Her lips tingled with the expectation of feeling his own sweet, sugary mouth sliding over hers, and without even realizing it she parted them slightly, anticipating his tongue slipping inside to entangle with her own. She was caught under his dark spell, completely and utterly, a prisoner to the fierce master that was his overpowering love. “You always get that scared look on your face,” he murmured abruptly, halting inches from her face; the bold accusation snapped her put of the enchantment, and as she blinked in confusion she did realize that the muscles in her face had formed the visage of fear. “Are you afraid of me, Eun-Ae?” he asked, and she was appalled at herself to see that his expression had grown sad.

“No!” It came out more defensive than she had intended, and she panicked slightly when his expression looked more crestfallen. “No,” she repeated more calmly. Her mind was racing with thoughts she could barely describe; how could she explain an almost automatic reaction in such a way that would not hurt him? She certainly wasn't afraid of him. She knew that for a fact. So what was she afraid of? “I guess… Sometimes I’m afraid… of how much I love you,” she explained slowly as she pieced the puzzle together in her mind. It was true- the love she felt for Key was so powerful it could not be described in words, and it had developed in such a short time it was almost out of a movie. It was like she was not in control of her own actions, whenever he gave her that look. “I didn't realize my face did that,” she sighed and reached up, squishing her cheeks around with mild embarrassment. Why am I so weird?

Key listened silently to her vague explanation, his expression unreadable. It made Eun-Ae quite anxious, not knowing what he was thinking, and she shifted uncomfortably as she waited for him to answer. Did I not explain it right? It's not my fault I don't even really know why my body is reacting that way! I just know I love him! Isn't that enough? “Key?” she asked nervously, then straightened up like a stiff board as he suddenly broke out into a fit of quiet laughter.

“Why are you so serious? Jeez, Eun-Ae, you sure are a trip.” At his nonchalant dismissal, her face flushed bright red with an unsavory combination of anger and mortification. Was he joking?! I poured my heart out and got all worried just because of another one of his stupid pranks? As she opened to give him a piece of her mind, her words were stolen right out of as he jumped forward to passionately enclose her lips with his own, and everything she had thought of saying vanished in that instant. She couldn't even remember what she had been thinking about after a second or so; her mind had descended into a fog of ecstasy, and all she could focus on was the sugary-sweet taste of him busting in like fireworks. Her body moved of it’s own volition, her arms rising to clutch tightly onto his shirt to ground herself; otherwise, she felt like she was going to be swept away by the tsunami of fiery passion, washing over her with every push of his mouth against hers. At the same time, it felt like she was being pulled by an impossibly strong magnet, as her body migrated to his. Electricity sparked across her nerves as their middles touched, and she could feel his muscles flexing beneath his shirt as he fervently kissed her. By the time that they broke apart, she was absolutely breathless, and trembling violently as she sat trapped in the thralls of overwhelming desire. “There it is again. You have that scared look,” he purred and gently ran a finger down her cheek. Her face twitched towards his hand, begging for another touch. “You really are shameless.”

“Only because you make me so,” she sighed deeply. Now she was coming down from the high, and her face was flushing as she squashed the shameful thoughts that had been forming in her mind. He just makes me so… She couldn't even finish the thought, as she didn't really know how to word it. He chuckled at her answer, pulling back from her slightly. The moonlight streamed in from the small opening in the tent, and she was mildly surprised to find the thin sheen of sweat on his skin. As cool as be pretends to be, he gets excited too, she thought wryly.

“What’s that smirk about?” While she was lost in thought, she did not notice that he had been watching her intently, and received a flick in the forehead for her obvious display of mocking. She rubbed the tiny red mark with a slight frown, but could not hold it for long; the smile was back on her face before she even lowered her hand. Key snorted slightly in laughter before glancing at the opening of the tent, and then, to her shock, he stood up. Stooped over so as not to brush the sheets above their heads and send them crashing down on their heads as earlier, he carefully stepped over his friends' sleeping forms to exit the tent. As she sat there, wondering where on Earth he was going, he stuck his arm back into the tent and brusquely gestured for her to follow. What is he up to now? I can never guess what's in his head. Despite her misgivings, she obediently crawled out of the tent, nearly banging Onew in the head with her oxygen tank on the way out. As she stood up, she was momentarily awed by the transformation that the living room had undertaken.

It was like fairies had flown into the room and coated everything in it in beautiful silver glitter; the moonlight streaming in through the window bathed everything, making it like a shining white wonderland. Eun-Ae felt like she was walking in a dream, throwing up stardust with every slow, mystified step that she took across the floor. The plush carpet muffled her footfalls, adding to the eerie silence that aded the house. I never realized how beautiful the night could be, she thought as she walked around the tent and out into the entryway, where Key was waiting with the front door open. The cool night breeze wafted into the house, ruffling the curtains and tent where their friends slept peacefully on. He had a smile on his face, but it was one with a hidden meaning, one she could not understand. “My Lady,” he smirked suddenly, bowing like a prince would to a beautiful princess. Eun-Ae certainly didn't look like a princess, in her fluffy pajamas and fuzzy slippers and unkempt hair, but in the magical nighttime atmosphere with the handsome young man bowing to her, she felt like one. She gave him a curtsy, giggling, before she stepped out onto a porch with a dramatic flare. Key followed after her, quietly shutting the door behind him. Eun-Ae drifted across the porch like a fairy herself, captivated by the surreal atmosphere.

Like the inside of the house, the world was bathed in that soothing silver glow, while the sky above was a yawning expanse of black. However, now that it was deep into the night and all the world was asleep, there was no light pollution, no smog from running cars to cloud the brilliance that shone in that blackness. Eun-Ae had never seen so many stars; there seemed to be millions, splashed across that nothingness in a glittering silver curtain, swirling like dots of paint across a dark canvas. Her eyes wide with wonder reflected the painting as she gazed up at it, and she was so enthralled by the sheer magnificence of nature that she did not notice that Key had come up behind her. “Sometimes, when it all got too overwhelming on tour, I would step outside to clear my head and this is what I would see,” he breathed into her ear.

“It's… I don't even have the words.” Truly, she did not; it seemed that she was at a loss for words about everything lately, continuously awe-stricken by one thing after another.

“It reminds you of how small everything is, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't it?” It was true. Beneath the endless sky, she felt like a mere bug, an insignificant speck in a big, big world. His arms slipped around her waist, holding her against him as he propped his head on her shoulder. “All your problems seem so small compared to that.”

He was trying to make her feel better; instead, it just made her sad.

“But… My problem isn't small.” She turned her gaze away from the starscape, and all the weight of reality came crashing back down. “It's not something where I can just stare at a pretty scene and make it all better… Tomorrow is my tenth day. My life is almost halfway over.” She had tried not to think about it much, trying to focus on the positive, but at the end of the day, when she was faced by the crushing night, it always came back to her. I’m dying. I’m dying, and there is nothing that I can do about it. She had always known, really, that her cancer would claim her life, and at one point she had even welcomed the possibility. Now, however, it was different. “Maybe that's why I get that scared look on my face- because deep down, I know that soon I won't have you anymore.” She didn't know when she had started to cry, but now the tears were streaming freely down her face. She felt it now, that suffocating fear, the terror of this blissful time coming to a screeching, shuddering halt.

“Oh, Eun-Ae,” he exhaled deeply and pulled her into a tight hug, and she released a strangled sob as she released all the pent-up emotions she had been harboring for the last nine days.

“I'm sorry,” she chimed out miserably. “I-I'm trying s-so h-hard to enjoy th-this time, b-but I c-can't h-help but th-think about it… I th-think about b-being without y-you and it f-f-f-frightens m-m-me…!” As she cried bitterly, for the first time in her life wishing to God that it had been different, that she could just be normal, Key just held her in a crushing embrace and consoled her with words left unspoken. What could he say aloud that could change that? Nothing, but she felt comfort all the same, wrapped in his muscular arms.

“I know. It doesn't just frighten me… It terrifies me,” he whispered as he buried his face into her hair, thinned by the grueling rounds of chemotherapy she had completed months before. They held each other for a long time, long enough for the silver shower across the world to slowly fade from existence to be replaced by a golden glow as the sun rose, chasing away the world of night.

And so, the sun rose on Eun-Ae's tenth day, and thus her life was halfway over.