Jessica wonders why is it that every time he's around Jaejoong, he starts hiccupping. She wonders even more why so in front of Sooyoung, Taeyeon, Sunny, Suhyeon, Yoona...., he doesn't. Just her.

 

If she's not mistaken, it's one of his new habits triggered by the line-up of the bottles of soju leading to Yoochun and Jaejoong's room in the DBSK apartment. 

 

The other four were out having a party, and Jessica decided to pay a visit the minute Jaejoong texted her to come. But even so, there's no particular reason that he told her to come. She just did, like her feet are automatically leading her to where he is. 

 

But Jessica wonders even more why Jaejoong hadn't chosen to go with the boys like he usually does. Instead, he's downing himself with so much liquor being the drunken man that he is now in the said apartment. 

 

She frantically sits beside Jaejoong's form looking out the vast view of Seoul at night. She taps at his back making sure he's okay.

 

"So what's the problem?" she asks. "Speak!" she almost sounds commanding, yet with a worried look on her face.

 

"Sica," Jaejoong replies, pausing, "You're here," he sounds relieved, flashing his drunken smile at her. 

 

"Are you insane?!" she almost shouts, pushing with all her might as she watches him slowly falling on her lap unconsciously. She thinks that it just might be his now capability of imbalance as the liquor finally sinks in him and its one of a thousand effects.

 

"I might not be able to-" he hiccups, suddenly laughing as his left hand covers his mouth fully. It's his habit when he laughs. "Say this any other-" he hiccups "time."

 

"What about?" 

 

He lousily points at himself and her and back and forth and again fast, with Jessica not quite getting what he meant. She isn't a master of hand gestures, after all. 

 

"I've been wondering about your hiccups," she changes the topic when he doesn't speak.

 

Jaejoong just nods, his eyes blinking lamely like how a sleepy man would.

 

"Does Yoochun know?" she asks, and he nods. "Yunho?" He nods again, and for a while she feels a sense of relief and she thinks once again of the fact that his hiccups heighten even more when she's around him, but she ignores that and generalizes his hiccups that occur every other time.

 

"Hiccups," he says and hiccups right after, grinning from ear-to-ear again. "I know-" he hiccups again "why."

 

"Why?" she asks, eyes searching for an answer on Jaejoong's face and sighs she does as she's never been one to draw feelings from a simple expression one makes. Let alone, she's not Yoochun who could read Jaejoong very well.

 

She's certain of one thing, though. But even so, she doesn't know what he feels. Does he feel the same way, after all?

 

She watches as Jaejoong reaches out to her, once or twice failing. She doesn't know what he's reaching out to, but eventually her right hand finds its way in Jaejoong's hold. Ever so slowly, he leads her hand to his chest and she feels his heart thumping. Loud. Almost as if she could make out that it is beating her name. 'Sica Sica Sica' it beats. Once. Twice. Never-ending.

 

She finds out a minute later that it is after all the case when Jaejoong leaned in and covered with his. Her eyes naturally shot wide at first, but she closed them the minute she felt that it is love. 

 

It is love, after all. 

 

And even as they hear a very loud "Merry Christmas" from Yunho, Yoochun, Junsu, and Changmin as the door opens, they don't stop and neither do any of the four apologize for intruding.