The bang of the heavy door echoed through the recesses of his mind. Collapsing onto the sofa with fatigue, Seunghyun wondered what he had just done. The loud sound must have startled the rest of the guys who were hiding in their bedrooms. The FT Island leader stepped into the living area. With a look at the dining table full of the food that was untouched, Jonghun asked, “What just happened?”

Noticing that the f(x) rapper was no where to be seen and the birthday boy sulking away, the older man had to ask again, “Where’s Amber?”

Seunghyun closed his eyes and dropped his head back. “She left.”

“Amber noona’s gone?” Minhwan had come out of his room too. Going over to the table to check whether there were any leftovers he could knick, he observed naively, “But you guys have not had dinner yet. You really should try the cake, Noona is quite talented in baking.”

Only after she had left the apartment did the belated pang of regret hit Seunghyun, as always. She had probably spent the past few weeks learning how to cook from Victoria. This was the story of their relationship – he got mad about some random tabloid picture or video or news; she would try to defuse his anger; he would push her away; she would storm off; he would come to his senses and apologise; she of course would always give in; and they would live happily until something else came up again – this was a cycle they could not get out of; no thanks to his jealousy.

“What’s this? Who left this lying around?” Jaejin who had followed the rest out spotted the corner of the magazine from under the sofa and pulled it out – he was a neat freak in that way. When the bassist saw the page it was opened at, realisation dawned upon him.

“The dumbo must have picked another quarrel with Amber,” Jaejin showed the other guys the magazine feature and the other two nodded knowingly.

His eyes flew open and Seunghyun glared hard at his friends. “You know nothing!” He retorted. The image of Minho and Amber had haunted him so badly that his performance in the recording studio had been greatly affected and to say that the producer had berated him was an understatement. He had always been a consummate professional and nothing seemed to faze him when it came to bringing his A game to work, even an illness, but Amber … Amber crippled him. 

“You need to loosen up dude. Even Key thinks you are going overboard with the possessiveness.” Jaejin flopped himself next to his pal, ignoring the outburst. “He complained that Amber wouldn’t even have dinner with him, in case you get all crazy on her.”

The leader stood before him with his arms akimbo but voice gentle. “We all saw how much Amber cares about you. She was here since 2pm, busy making you this feast, all for your birthday.”

It wasn’t that Seunghyun couldn’t see all this – he never forgot how lucky he to have such a girl in his life and on any ordinary day, pulled all the stops to put a smile on her face. Yet, somehow, seeing some other guy with Amber just drove him nuts and he ended up acting out.

“I like Noona. She takes care of us because she loves you.” The youngest one spoke out. “And I am so happy that you have found someone like her. Although lately, all I heard is two of you fighting and you making her unhappy. I don’t have much experience in love but I believe that if you love someone, you just want to make her happy, no matter what.”

Just as the FT Island members were gathered around Seunghyun, the f(x) girls rallied around a sullen Amber. “I’m going to kill that Song Seunghyun,” Victoria declared as she paced the length of the girls’ bedroom. “What is his problem? Last month it was Myungsoo and now Minho? Does he expect you to be a nun?”

Sulli sat on the bed, patting Amber’s head. “Oppa must be blind. If not, he should be able to see that you only have eyes for him.”

“Maybe I should quit this show business thing. We don’t even see each other enough and he gets most of his updates about me though outside sources. If we weren’t so visible, he won’t be able to read about me in magazines, watch us on TV, and then he wouldn’t be so pissed even if I hung out with my guy friends.” Amber mused. Now that she had calmed down after storming home, she was racking her brains to find a solution to put an end to all this nonsense.

“I think she has gone mad.” Krystal stated, staring at Amber like an alien.

She tried her best to give him a sense of security. Yet it was in his personality to be all possessive like this.  Amber knew what bugged Seunghyun – due to the nature of their jobs, they could not go public with their relationship. It killed him not to be able to walk on the streets holding Amber’s hand and not being able to announce to the whole world that Amber didn’t like Kris, Donghae, Minho, JB or anyone else the media loved to pair her up with because the f(x) rapper was his girlfriend.