Dara:

“Youngbae-sshi, I’m sorry If I’m late,” I panted, a bit tired from running. It was fifteen minutes past 4PM and I knew that Youngbae-sshi had very little time to help me with my weak dancing especially since his hands were already full with his solo promotions and recording sessions for Big Bang’s upcoming albums, being on time would be the best thing I could do for him.

“It’s okay,” Youngbae replied with a smile. “It’s my fault for choosing this dance room for our practice. I forgot that you’re still new here and you didn’t know this place.”

I bowed repeatedly at him, assuring him that it was my fault instead. “Oh no, no. I should have asked someone about this earlier.”

“You don’t have to be sorry...I couldn’t find a better room for our sessions since well...” His voice trailed off, but I knew his thoughts were along the lines of this is the best place we could meet without Jiyong discovering us.

“Thank you very much, Youngbae-sshi,” I said sincerely. “I feel that I couldn’t thank you enough, but I really appreciate this very much.”

Youngbae blushed a bit, but he just laughed dismissively, trying to mask his discomfort. “Don’t think too much about it. Let’s just focus on our agenda for today.” He went over to where the cd player was. “I asked you to prepare a short dance routine last night, no?”

I shuddered. I’ve never danced in front of a guy before...especially in front of some big time group member most known for his dancing. I hope nobody sees us, hell...I hope no one learns about this meeting. I’d just die. Perhaps if I ever got the chance to debut and become famous I’d share this info because then my future “fans” would have found it cute but now...

“Dara-sshi?” Youngbae called my name again. “Are you ready?”

“Oh,” I answered back awkwardly. I went to where he was standing and handed the cd to him. “it’s j-just a t-two minute and a h-half dance routine,” I mumbled. If I did longer than that I’d just end up looking stupid anyway.

“No problem.” He placed the cd inside the player and sat down, indian-style. “Just tell me when you’re ready and I’ll press the button immediately.”

I took a few steps back and nodded at him. “I’m ready.”

He grinned and pressed the play button. My heart started hammering inside my chest the moment I heard the first few verses of the song, but still, I danced and showed him my routine while he watched silently, keenly observing (and perhaps making silent assessments about) my dancing.

My knees almost gave out by the time the last beat played. So what now? I looked at his face, trying my best to read his thoughts. Did he like it?

“Did you like it?” I managed to choke out. Damn, my nerves.

Youngbae smiled a little. He stood up and went beside me, and the two of us looked at our reflections at the huge mirrors placed in front of us. “It was okay,” He started, his hands resting on my shoulders. He squeezed them and I almost jumped. “Your shoulders are too...stiff. Everything has to be in sync.” He removed his hands away from me and started moving his shoulders in a circular motion. “Let go of your nerves and the stiffness will go away as well.”

“Okay...” I copied what he was doing and before we knew it, both of us were doing the same exercises. Our reflections smiled at each other; his was encouraging while mine showed gratitude.

“See? Eventually you’d get the hang of this. Learning choreography would be easier if you get comfortable with how your body works and moves first.” Youngbae stopped doing the exercise while I continued. “Why don’t I teach you some warm-ups? I know you know the basics, but since your body is a bit stiff compared to the others I could show you some that might do wonders...” He stopped when he saw my reaction to his ‘stiff compared to the others’ comment. He blushed once again. “I’m sorry, You’re not really a bad dancer and --- “

“You’re being too nice,” I said softly. “Everything about this is a too much already, Youngbae-sshi.”

“Just...just stop having thoughts like that,” He answered back. “We’re in the same company anyway.”

“But...”

Youngbae laughed and waved his right hand dismissively. “It’s not really a big deal.” He moved closer and placed his left hand on my waist. “Stiff as well, but still has hope. Let me teach you something that might help you and later on you’ll do your routine again and --- “

“What is this?”

That voice. No wonder Youngbae and I jumped the moment we heard it.

Jiyong:

So apparently, the woman managed to lure even Youngbae inside her den. And how suggestive, them meeting in a abandoned dance room like this, acting too close to each other. No wonder I couldn’t find even Youngbae’s shadow at the recording room no matter how much I tried earlier.

My eyes godfreakin landed on Youngbae’s left hand, which was resting calmly on her waist. Youngbae saw where my eyes were and removed his hand away from her immediately.

“Jiyong,” Youngbae greeted me, as if I didn’t catch him doing something with this woman behind my back. “I thought you cut our recording session short for today?”

“And I thought you were busy practicing for your second comeback stage,” I replied coldly. “Changed your plans so easily?”Changed your mind about her so easily? Fcuk, everybody just falls into her trap in the end. All the fcukin time

He bit his lip as he looked down on the floor, refusing to meet my eyes. “My practice starts at 6.”

“Ah.” I folded my arms and glanced at her for a second before I continued. “So you’re not as exhausted as our manager was saying. I thought two hour breaks are short considering comeback preparations are demanding and time consuming, but I guess to you it’s not because you’re here.” Meeting this woman secretly, for reasons I don’t even want to know or care about.

“Yah, Kwon Jiyong,” Youngbae half hissed at me, much to my irritation. He’s not one to hiss at me over something as stupid as this! What did this woman do? He was gone for about an hour and now he’s acting like they’ve spent a lot of time already?“You don’t have to do this.”

I took a few steps closer while she took a few steps back. How convenient, she positioned herself behind him. “Do what?” I taunted. I took a few more steps, making her whimper a little.

“You’re scaring her,” Youngbae answered back, his face serious. “You’re scaring me.”

I stopped short and stared at him long and hard. I wouldn’t be really this irritated if Youngbae didn’t even try to protect her because protecting her from me isn’t really needed anyway. Spending time with her is one thing, but doing it secretly is just...unnerving. I didn’t see that coming most especially from my best friend.

“What are you guys doing anyway?” I barked, and I could already feel my face reddening as I did so. Dara was trembling a bit and I was surprised with how she reacted (like she was so terrified of me). And I don’t know why, but my irritation heightened upon seeing her reaction. How dare she, acting like I’m the cause of everything bad that happened to her.

“I was trying to help her with her dancing,” Youngbae answered calmly. “I knew you wouldn’t approve, so I decided to keep it a secret.” He looked apologetically at Dara the moment he stated his reason. “I’m sorry Dara-sshi if it seemed like I was hiding you in the closet but you perfectly know the issue. Jiyong, while he’s obviously a nice person on an ordinary day, won’t take this lightly because anything that is related to you flares up his temper like no one else does.”

I didn’t know when and where Youngbae got that sarcasm lately. I think I’m gonna blow up, but arguing with Seunghyun hyung is enough. I won’t let this woman further ruin my rather good relationships with people close to me.

“Who said I wouldn’t approve?”

Youngbae and the woman cowering pathetically behind him were caught off-guard. They didn’t expect my reaction. “I could care less about what you want to do with your spare time, Youngbae. So as long as you don’t do it while we are completing our album.”

“Well we’re not having our recording sessions right now,” he said defiantly. “and to be frank this spare time is within mysecond comeback promotions schedule anyway.”

“Exactly.” I agreed. I placed my hands inside my pockets and took one last look at them. “Let’s just say I didn’t find you doing something with someone here. I was just looking for you because something good came up -- something related to the track we were talking about last night. I guess it could wait until tomorrow, or whenever you’d realize that there are far more important things to do than helping the hopeless.” I bowed at them, half-respectful, mostly sarcastic. “Annyeong.” 

Youngbae didn’t say anything while Dara’s form suggested that she was on the verge of sobbing uncontrollably once again. I left before something weird might happen, like me experiencing that dull ache (that I tried so hard to ignore) whenever I’d see or hear her cry because of me. Not this time.

Youngbae:

The poor girl. She was crying again, completely hurt. I hate seeing girls cry, and I hate it more if it was because of some guy (I know) who caused that.

Regardless of the fact that she did some pretty questionable things to hurt him as well.

Seunghyun hyung wasn’t kidding about feeling sorry for Dara when you’re with her and you see for yourself how Jiyong would throw the harshest of insults at her every now and then.

And it’s really painful to watch in a way because I know Jiyong. Guy is the epitome of the word ‘passionate’. He falls in love madly and you see and eventually breathe into the idea. He gets hurt and well...he doesn’t know how to deal with it because most if not all of his feelings are just intense. His intense love for Dara must have collided with his intense hurt over what Dara did to him along with his intense ‘pride’ or ‘self-respect’, whatever you may call it. The perfect reason why he’s being such a jerk.

“He hates me,” Dara wailed miserably beside me. “I’d always say that I’d just take whatever he throws at me because what I did was beyond bad but...it kills me everytime. Everytime I see him looking at me with disgust.”

“No, he doesn’t hate you. He was just jealous because he saw us together. And it annoyed him that I kept this from him.”

Dara (with her tears still streaming down her face) suddenly looked at me strangely. I paused.

Okay, wait...did I just say what I said?

“Jiyong,” I started again, trying to move on to another topic. “He’s not very good with his emotions sometimes. This might be new to you, but I know it’s not completely foreign. He’s just...” I smiled wistfully, remembering the times when Jiyong got overwhelmed because of his feelings; this wasn’t really the first time in a sense. “He might look like an immature person to you but really, I could tell that he’s still crazy about you.”

“He might look like an immature person?” Dara asked incredulously. She sniffed before continuing, “he’s totally being an a-hole to me. If I didn’t love him I would have...I would have bashed his head or completely went on with my initial ‘evil’ plan against him.” She frustratedly wiped her tears away and sniffed a few times more. “But I couldn’t, because that’s just impossible now. I’ve fallen so hard for him.”

“Just...let him be. I can’t tell exactly until when you should do that, but one thing’s for sure. He’s still in love with you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well...I’m not one to tell that really, it’s just based from what I know about him. Okay, forget what I said!!!” Geez, I think I’m pulling another Seunghyun here. I should stop myself, because half of me is blacklisted already in Jiyong’s eyes. Half, because I knew he wouldn’t really write me off, me being his best friend.

“Youngbae-sshi...”

Her face looked pensive all of a sudden. She stopped crying, thank goodness. I mean I’m hear to help her with her dancing, and not exactly to comfort her or listen to her troubles in general.

“Dara-sshi?”

“I just wanted to say thank you. Really. And maybe...maybe I should stop having lessons with you.”

“What?” I asked, surprised. “But this is just are first session, I barely got to teach you anything that would help you!”

“No, actually you did a lot already. And besides...I’m causing so much trouble because of this. First, with Seunghyun, and then you. I can’t do that, not now. You’re having your album preparations with the rest of Big Bang. And I can’t screw this up because I know your fans are already anxious from waiting so long. Can you imagine? And I’m already hated as it is. If some of those fans of yours found out I was causing some unnecessary sh1t that’s stopping you guys from releasing an album on time, they’d just kill me.”

“What are you talking about? They don’t know you.”

“Okay, let’s say they don’t. But the overzealous ones, no offense, started having theories. I’m not completely oblivious to what’s happening in fan cafes, you know.”

Theories? What theories? Was she that paranoid over her issue with Jiyong? I was just helping her, nothing really big. I’m not gonna attend to her training needs completely anyway. How did our fans come to the equation?

“Some fans,” Dara continued as she sat on the floor. “Some fans are connecting the rumor about me to you guys. To Jiyong. Saying that we’re having a relationship but the news about that service thing got around and now some of them are blaming me.”

I almost did a double take. “What?! Okay, you haven’t debuted yet. You’re not going out together before this even, how come there are assumptions like that?”

“Um, we did go out together. Twice, I think. Some pictures are circulating on the forums now. Majority of your fans were just so good at keeping things under wraps because Jiyong has his big name out there on the line. But of course they were furious. A big number of those fans were at some point glad that my suggestive photos leaked, because then I wouldn’t get to debut because of that.”

“But YGE made you stay.”

“Yeah, but for how long?! Me thinks they were just softening the blow, going ‘Oh, we won’t kick you out because of the photos because we don’t want to be accountable for that’ or something. I just know it.”

“That’s not true,” I argued. “YGE made you stay because you have a lot of potential.”

“You’re really a positive person, huh?”

I laughed at her remark. “I guess. So I say you let me help you for the time being and then after this you could start sorting things out on your own?”

“Maybe. I could really use some help right now. I’m just sorry for everything. Jiyong might look like he agreed on this too, but I could tell he was irritated because it seemed like I was attracting you guys into helping me on purpose.”

“Just don’t mind him. You said it yourself, you need help. And you really need it seriously.” I think I gave her a playful smile...or was that a sneer? Dara’s eyes widened and she started slapping me on the arm playfully.

“You’re mean! You said I wasn’t a bad dancer?”

We’re starting to act like friends. Senghyun hyung was right, Dara’s not that bad.

“You have two left feet. But that’s okay, we’ll fix it so it wouldn’t be that obvious.”

She laughed some more and later on I followed suit. A few weeks ago I didn’t know the deal about her but I think...

I’m understanding why she’s special for most people here. For Jiyong especially, as much as he hated to admit it.