Uki’s POV~

Breathe in…

Breathe out…

Breathe in…

Breathe out…

I smiled subconsciously, feeling ridiculously warm and comfortable in the deepest, most amazing slumber I have ever experienced in my entire nineteen years of life. Everything just felt so… So… Fluffy. The pillows underneath my head were all giant and fluffed up, the comforter beneath me made me feel as though I were sleeping on clouds, and the humongous, fluffy blanket was enough to make me never wanna wake up for as long as I lived. But there was just something… Something telling me that I had to wake up. As if… As if I wasn’t supposed to be here…

Fighting my ultimate desire of wanting to stay in the same position forever and to never wake up, I unwillingly forced my eyes open, instantly regretting my decision when a blast of light invaded my line of sight and practically burned my cornea. I quietly yelped, throwing both my hands up in order to cover my eyes from the unwanted attack of bright, unnecessarily cheery light streaming in from, I’m assuming, a window whose blinds or curtains were open. Blinking for a moment or two in order to allow my eyes to adjust to the ridiculously bright room, I carefully moved my hands away from my face. I still couldn’t handle the intensity of the light, so I ended up keeping my eyes squinted so I could examine my surroundings. Goddamnit, why was the light so bright?!

I propped myself up with one arm as I used my other hand to shield my eyes from the intensity of the shining light. Blinking rapidly, I realized that the source of the light was a set of double French doors on my left with their pale blue curtains pulled to the side to reveal a beautiful morning scene of a green meadow, clear blue skies, and tall, proud trees. What in the… WHERE THE HELL AM I?!

WHY DO I NOT KNOW WHERE I AM?!

WHY DO I NOT REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?!

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!

Okay, okay, breathe, Uki. There has to be a logical explanation to all this.

I sat up straight, back flat against the mahogany headboard, and ran my hands through my hair, trying to sort through my scattered memories of what happened last night. Okay. So I left the club last night with Void. Then he dropped me off at the Han River. And after he drove off, I walked off to find a place where I could buy some liquor. I came back to the bridge and finished off the bottle of whiskey. And then… And then… AND THEN WHAT?! WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT?!

“URGH!” I screamed in frustration, beating the innocent bed with my fists.

After a few moments of heavy breathing and silent curses, I decided that the next important thing I needed to figure out was where the hell was I? I lifted my head up to fully take in my surroundings, but it didn’t help. Nothing about the pale blueness of this room helped me figure out my current location. The pale blue walls, the pale blue comforters and bedspread, the pale blue curtains, the pale blue rug sitting on top of the hardwood floors, the pale blue ceiling fan was all alien to me, and I honest to God could not recognize any of it.

Aigoo. What if something bad happened? What if some random guy found me while I was drunk, whisked me away with him to this unknown location, and completely took advantage of me or something?

My eyes widened at the sudden thought, and I immediately looked underneath the giant, fluffy blanket; I sighed a huge sigh of relief when I noticed that I was still wearing clothes, meaning that I was still safe from that last possibility. Well then… What the hell happened, and why can I not remember any of it?!

Suddenly, my ears perked up. That sounded like… someone turning off a shower, meaning—

My head instantly snapped to the right toward the wooden door that had steam emitting from the bottom. Oh my god, someone was taking a shower in there. Oh my god, someone was in the same room as me. I felt myself slightly panicking when I heard the person behind the door whistling a random tune. What if it were some psycho killer or something?!

I rolled out of the bed, landing on the floor with a thud. Reaching above my head, I grabbed the lamp sitting on the bedside table and ripped the cord from the wall. I held the metal lamp close to my chest, ready to strike whoever came anywhere near me. I felt like I was in one of those overly-dramatic movies, the ones where time slows down and all you can hear is the person’s heartbeat and heavy breathing, the camera does a close up to the heroine/hero’s face, and you can literally feel the anticipation of when the killer or the enemy or the antagonist or whatever is about to jump out and murder the heroine/hero. Yeah, you know the movies I’m talking about, right? Well, that’s exactly how I felt, right down to the loud heartbeat and breathing since I could literally feel my heartbeat pounding in my ears, and my breathing sounded as though it were magnified ten thousand times louder than what it probably was.

About twenty years later—although I’m pretty positive it was only about 3 seconds—I heard the door open and the whistling come to an abrupt stop. I could almost imagine whoever the hell the person was standing there, with its—I didn’t know the gender of the stupid thing, okay!—head tilted slightly in a questioning manner while it stared at the suddenly-empty bed. I held my breath, terrified of making myself heard, as the seconds ticked by, feeling like centuries to me.

After another pause, a male’s voice—goddamnit! Just had to be male!—said in a confused, quiet manner, “What the… Where the hell did she go?”

I heard the person walking toward the bed, and, after shutting my eyes, I sprang from my hiding place and blindly swung at the person. I heard a satisfying sound of the metal lamp making contact with a face, which was quickly followed by a loud “OW!” I opened my eyes to find that I had knocked the person down on the ground. Carefully, I peered over the edge of the bed and instantly felt my eyes widen as I exclaimed, “OH MY GOD, JAMES!”

“WHAT THE HELL, UKI!” he screamed, getting up from the floor and holding onto the right side of his face.

“Aigoooooo,” I said, dropping the lamp and quickly standing up on the bed so I could examine the extent of his injuries. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to! I thought you were some crazy, psycho killer!”

“Well I’m obviously not! Aish. Uki, that ing hurt!” he exclaimed, reluctantly allowing me to remove his hand so I could have a clear look at his face.

I pouted when the sight of his bright red, already-swelling-and-bruising skin greeted me. Not knowing what else to do, I put my cold hands flat against his face, and even though he gave me a weird look for a moment, he quickly smiled and realized that my hands were pretty much the next best thing to a bag of ice.

Giving him a look full of apology and regret, I quietly asked, “Better?”

He chuckled slightly. “I guess. You should watch who you’re swinging at next time! What if that were Siwon or something!”

“Well… I’ve hit Siwon for the same thing before,” I replied slowly. “I’ve also hit Henry… And Void… And Donghae… Oh my, I’m quite violent.”

James’ stare fell flat, causing me to roll my eyes at him. I pouted at him. “Don’t give me that look!”

“You deserve it!” he instantly replied.

“Aish.” I removed my hands from his face and sat down on the bed, patting the empty space beside me. He picked up on the hint and sat down, waiting for me to say something. “Okay, James. Since I can’t remember anything that happened last night, you’re gonna fill me in. First off… Where the hell am I?”

He laughed at me and leaned back so his back was resting against one of the four wooden bedposts. He took his leisurely time to answer me, nonchalantly drying his still-wet hair with a white towel while I patiently sat there and waited for my explanation. “Well, you’re at my grandma’s house; to be more specific, you’re in my room.”

I felt my cheeks instantly heat up as all the blood rushed straight to my face. I coughed slightly, turning my head away from him as I stuttered, “J-James, please d-don’t tell me th-that w-we—”

“Uki, what kinda man do you take me for?” he interrupted, giving me a stern look. “Do I look like the kinda guy who would take advantage of a girl while she’s unbelievably drunk outta her mind?”

I flinched at his words. So I was that drunk, huh?

Deciding to avoid the further potential awkwardness of the current conversation, I asked, “Okay, so how exactly did I end up here?”

“Well, let’s see,” James said, his features taking on a thoughtful arrangement. “After I left Darkside last night—Wait a minute. Do you remember what happened at Darkside last night? Like… Everything?”

“Ugh,” I replied, my face twisting in disgust. “How can I not? If I ever meet that sleazebag again, I swear to God I will personally walk him down to the gates of Hell myself. And to think—Wait a minute. You were at Darkside? What? Okay, I’m confused.”

James sighed deeply at me, and I knew him well enough to know that, that was his way of letting me know that he was highly amused by this whole situation. “Yes, Uki, I was there. That sleazebag just so happened to be one of my really good friends. Well… used-to-be really good friends. Now, he’s lucky if I don’t him up the next time I see him.”

“Ew! You mean to tell me that I got felt up on by one of your friends?! James! Why didn’t you do anything?!” I frowned, irritated not only by the fact that James had just stood there when one of his friends pretty much molested me in a club I honestly had no business being in, but also by the fact that I was so ing drunk last night that I hadn’t recognized him. Ugh! MY LIFE IS SO SCREWED UP.

“Hey! In my defense, I wasn’t the one walking over to a group of hormonally-crazed guys in a slinky dress, ridiculous stilettos, and y hair and makeup, acting all seductive and . What the hell were you thinking?!” James shouted in response.

“I don’t know what I was thinking! I was drunk, James! Aish. Just continue on where you left off before all the ‘wait a minute’s interrupted,” I said in an irritated manner.

He blew a breath of irritation, frowning slightly at me. “Fine. So anyways, after I left Darkside, I walked over to the Han River ‘cause I wanted a quiet place to think. Basically, I needed to blow some steam or else Taejun would have ended up dying that night. But that’s beside the point. So there I was, just arriving at the bridge, when I see you sitting on the edge, looking scary as . Like, seriously, you looked like the Korean version of The Grudge or something. But again, that’s beside the point. So anyways, you were seriously lucky I was there, ‘cause right as I was about to run the other way, I saw you swaying, and all of a sudden, you fell forward and almost fell off the bridge. Your is lucky I was able to run fast enough to grab you before you fell.”

I gulped, chills instantly washing over my body. I can’t believe that I almost died last night… Aigoo. I literally owe James my life! He seriously saved my life last night! Oh man… Some trippy stuff.

“So after I grabbed you,” James continued, “you ended up passing out, so I decided to take you home with me so you wouldn’t go and get yourself killed at some other river or something. But yeah, that’s pretty much it. And here you are now!”

I frowned slightly. I felt as though there was another thing that happened last night that I don’t remember about and that James wasn’t telling me. Something very… very… important. Aigoo. What the hell was it, though! Shaking my head, I looked to James and thought for a moment before asking, “Is that all? Nothing else happened?”

“Well…” He trailed off, a thoughtful look on his face once more. “No, not really. Do you remember anything?”

I was silent for a moment before slowly shaking my head. In all honesty, I didn’t really remember anything that happened after my finishing the bottle of whiskey at the bridge, so everything that James just recounted to me was pure news. He sighed and smiled slightly. He looked as though he was contemplating something, but after a small, almost-unnoticeable shake of his head, he said, “Well then. It’s one in the afternoon. Shall we catch some lunch?”

My eyes widened and my heart sank as I loudly exclaimed, “ONE IN THE AFTERNOON?! HOLY , VOID IS GONNA KILL ME!”

I shot outta the bed and raced around the room, gathering up whatever looked vaguely close to being mine. After grabbing a hoodie that I knew for sure belonged to James, and a pair of sweats that I also knew belonged to James, I quickly kissed him on the cheek and said as I was heading toward the door, “Thanks for everything, James, but I really gotta go. The guys are gonna freaking murder me!”

“Uki, wait!” James called after me, suddenly grabbing my arm and jerking me back toward him.

“What!” I exclaimed. I looked up at him, an impatient look on my face as I waited for what he had to say.

“I have a quick question. Have you called Donghae recently?”

His question was so out-of-the-ordinary and so unexpected that it managed to completely catch me off guard and make me momentarily lose the sense of urgency that had been propelling me to quickly get out of the house and into a taxi just moments ago. My brows knitted together in confusion as I quickly asked, “What? What the hell are you talking about, James? Have you gone insane?”

“I’m being serious, Uki,” James replied, giving me a straight-faced look. “Have you called Donghae recently?”

“No, I haven’t, but that’s irrelevant to anything that’s happening right now because I’ve got to go,” I insisted, but he held onto my wrist, not letting me go anywhere.

“Look, all I’m saying is this,” James said, looking me dead in the eye. “Call him, okay? Call him soon and just talk to him. But there’s a condition.”

“What in the world are you talking about?” I asked, just as confused as ever.

“You have to call him when you’re drunk. Who knows what interesting confessions may arise.”

~~~~

The entire taxi ride home, I was contemplating James’ last words to me. So like James to be cryptic and annoying like that. What the hell did he mean by “You have to call him when you’re drunk”? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Did I say something about Donghae last night when I was drunk? Did I say something I wasn’t supposed to? Ugh! Why couldn’t James just have told me?!

But right now?

Right now, I couldn’t worry myself over that. Right now, I had to worry myself over how in the hell I was planning to remain alive since I was pretty damn sure that the moment I step foot into the dorm is the moment that Void literally murders me. But it’s just Void, right? Nothing to worry about, right?

HA.

Even I found that statement amusing, for I knew that as scared of me as he was, Void himself could also be scary when he wanted to be.

I sighed in trepidation as I slowly walked into the SM building, into the elevator, and waited for it to bring me up to the fifteenth floor. Fidgeting along the way, I was absolutely terrified, not only of Void murdering me, but also of the other guys murdering me. I mean, Heechul? Leeteuk? Yeah, they’re not gonna take kindly to the fact that I went missing for an entire night, especially once word gets out that I had somehow mysteriously ended up halfway across Seoul, near the more rural areas of the stupid city, without any modes of transportation whatsoever.

Once I was on the right floor, I hesitantly headed over to the door and carefully opened it, barely sticking my head in so I could see if there was anybody inside or not. I thought the coast was clear, but the moment I opened the door fully and slipped inside, shutting the door and being careful not to make a single noise, I was immediately tackled. I went flying a few feet before I landed on my back. I couldn’t even register what was going on before I realized that someone was straddling me, their hands pinning my wrists down on the floor on either side of my head. I blinked for a few seconds to get rid of the dizziness that swam around in my head to realize that an angry-looking Void was staring at me full in the face, an absolutely enraged fire burning in his eyes.

“Where the hell. Were you?” he asked in a slow, calm manner through gritted teeth.

I laughed nervously and said, “Ah, well, funny story, Void. You see, after you left me at the river, I went off to get some liquor. And I guess I got so drunk that I ended up passing out. But no worries, ‘cause then one of my friends had the luck of finding me and bringing me home so he could make sure I was safe!”

Void growled angrily, causing me to flinch. “DO YOU REALIZE THE HELL I WENT THROUGH LAST NIGHT LOOKING FOR YOU?! DO YOU REALIZE THAT THE OTHER IDIOTS ARE OUT THERE LOOKING FOR YOU RIGHT NOW, AND THAT THE OLD AJUSSHI IS ON THE VERGE OF SETTING OUT A POLICE REPORT FOR YOU?! DO YOU REALIZE JUST HOW MUCH TROUBLE YOU’RE IN?! DO YOU REALIZE THAT I AM ON THE ING VERGE OF ING MURDERING YOU RIGHT NOW?!”

“Yah! It’s not as though I was planning for any of this to happen! This is why I told you that I was done with drinking!” I screamed in response.

“GRAHHHH. I AM GOING TO KILL YOU! I AM SERIOUSLY GOING TO KILL YOU!”

“But I’m home now! We can totally forget that anything happened, right?” I asked in a feeble attempt at making the whole thing blow over, but even I knew that, that was a feckless wish.

Void laughed a cold, sarcastic laugh. “I don’t think so, Uki. Ohhhhhh no. I literally had my handed to me when I came home without you last night, and I have the soon-to-be scars to prove it and everything! There is no way in the ing name of Satan that I am going to let you get off so easily. Oh no. No, no, no. This calls for revenge. You just wait, Uki. I can already tell that you’re just going to love being my slave for the remainder of your stay.”

Well, I got bored, so ta-da!~

New chapter. C:

LOLL. Probably soooo many mistakes in this damned thing. I was literally half awake while editing all of it. Like... I was falling asleep while reading, so I'm pretty sure I may have only skimmed over parts of this. >.>

Lol. ANY WHO~

I was actually planning to write this chapter and not updating just to spite a few of my other readers 'cause I was irritated with them.

You see, here's what happened.

I have this Donghae fic called Tides of Change. I have... 73? 74 subs for the thing? And basically, I unnecessarily spent 3 1/2 hours of my time completing a chapter at 7 in the morning before I had to go to the temple for a really important celebration thing, and I came back after a long day to a total of 6 measley comments.

SIX.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I love all my readers to death, and I'm TOTALLY thankful for the comments that I DID get, but it's just frustrating as a writer, ya' know? You spend all this time to finish a chapter and update it 'cause you know it's been awhile since you've touched the story, and you come back to a single digit number of comments? Especially when you have over 70 ppl reading the damn thing? I mean, does it KILL you to just simply drop a "Hey, this was a good chapter!" or a "Great job on the chapter!" every now and then? Really? Comments aren't just words that you slap down into a comment box. No, they're SO much more than that. Like, seriously, they're what motivate the writers to keep writing, and without them, the writers just wanna quit.

But anyways, I've learned the best way to deal with this: if they're not gonna tell me their opinions on the chapter, or at least show me that they appreciate the fact that I spent so much of my time writing up an almost-5000-word chapter just for them when I COULD HAVE been studying for my physics mid-term instead, then they'll just wait longer for an update.

Honestly, this doesn't harm me whatsoever. If anything, it'll make things easier on me since I won't have to worry about racing to update or whatever.

So in the end, I decided not to hold off on the update simply because I didn't wanna punish you guys on the behalf of others.

Okay, that's the end of my rant. Thanks for listening and whatnot! I love you guys<3

Oh, and this also happens to be chapter 71~

Just pointing that out(;<

And the pic is totally irrelevant to the chapter.

I just thought he looked cute. C: