Dread and bile morphed together as Sung-hee clung to Delphine’s back the closer the pair got to their destination.  She had no idea what she was going to say, what she could do or what he was going to do and usually she prided herself on knowing what it was he was about to do.  She imagined him curled up in bed like last time expect angry this time and she wasn’t sure if a simple I’m sorry could fix this.  But as they parked in front of the building Sung-hee knew that she had to try. 

She expected Delphine to start walking with her but instead the younger girl stopped at the lobby door and patted Sung-hee on the shoulder.  “It’s not my place to be here.  I’ll wait down here with you alright?”  And despite how nervous and scared she was Sung-hee nodded and turned towards the elevator mumbling quietly to herself trying to figure out what she was going to say.  She was certain that the woman in the elevator with her thought that she was insane. 

With her confidence fluctuating Sung-hee slowly made her way to the door at the end of the hall she had gotten familiar with in the past two months.  In a way she was grateful this wasn’t at their old dorm.  There were just too many memories there that would make this harder than it had to be.  She hesitated outside the door for a moment before knocking.  For a few minutes no response came even though she heard shuffling inside.  With a small growl she knocked harder and finally the door opened revealing Kaang who looked at her with a mixture of annoyance and relief.  Before she could even open he pointed to his room, “He’s in there.

Bowing in thanks she torn her shoes off and bolted to his room, stopping at the door for a moment she glanced back at Kaang who motioned her forward.  Swallowing hard she knocked once and from inside she heard in muffled voice, “I don’t want to eat stop asking me.”  If this were a different time she would have smiled. 

Slowly she opened the door and wasn’t all that surprised when he sat up a bit to yell at Kaang but his jaw dropped seeing her there.  “I know you don’t want to eat but maybe you want to talk?”  When he didn’t say anything she took that as an invitation and stepped a bit closer still keeping a good amount of distance between them.  “Sanghyun I’m sorry.  I never meant to let my insecurity and jealousy get out of control like that and I said so many vicious things about you and the boys and your work but I really don’t mean them!  I love that you’re doing what you’re born to do and that you love your job so much Rena…Rena is just a stupid girl I shouldn’t have let get to me.  I shouldn’t have believed her so easily but…but I,” she looked away from him tears stinging her eyes, “when I saw you two kissing it was like my nightmare coming true.  I should have handled it better I should have but I didn’t and I’ll regret what I put you through for the rest of my life.”

Thunder was in honest shock hearing all of this.  Slowly he got out of bed and inched over to her but she didn’t seem to notice.  “Sung-hee-”

She didn’t hear him but continued rambling.  “I’d understood if you hated me and after you come back from your tour you never wanted to speak to me again.  But please accept my apology and give me some sort of sign whenever you’re ready as to if you hate me or not.”  She waited for something anything, a touch for him to yell at her anything.  But, when nothing happened the tears finally spilled over her eyes and she looked at the ground, still unable to meet his eyes.  “I-I-I should go.”  Sniffing and trying to hide her face from him she turned back to the door. 

Just as she opened the door his hand appeared over her head and forced the door shut before hugging her tightly from behind.  “Please, please, please don’t run away from me again Sung-hee I’ll go crazy if you do.”

Trying not to let him see her tears she wiped them away quickly and took a shaky breath before trying to reason with him that she should leave.  But then again she couldn’t help but be hopeful that he didn’t want her to leave.  “But I-”

With a growl of frustration he turned her around and placed both hands on her shoulders with a determined look in his tired eyes.  “Babo I don’t hate you.  I could never hate you I love you too much.  I just wish that you trusted me enough to believe that Rena was never a threat to you.”  He started out determined but eventually his voice grew weaker as his eyes glazed over and Sung-hee knew that he was remembering what happened a few days before.

Trying to get him out of his light trance she her lips a bit and placed one hand over his on her shoulder.  “Sanghyun I-”

Shaking his head he moved one hand from her shoulder and placed a finger against her lips, silencing her.  “Let me finish.  Sung-hee, work is going to take me all over the place and I’m going to be forced to work with other female idols and there are going to be those that try and gain my attention.  I know this is a high demand but you have to promise me that you won’t let it break you.  I love you too much to let something like this pull us apart.”

When he wiped the tears from her eyes she finally broke down and hugged him as tight as she could all the stress from the past few days releasing as he held her half in shock and let her cry.“I-I won’t I just-”

He sighed and placed a kiss on the top of her head hoping to calm her down a little bit.  “I know that I should have put a tighter restraint of Rena’s activities with me but you know I’m too nice for my own good,” They both gave a pained smile at this, “and I didn’t think that it would get to this point.  If it makes you feel better we’re all refusing to do any activities with her for as long as she’s here.”

Sung-hee pulled back from him a bit and wiped her eyes and almost didn’t believe the words that came out of , “You can’t just avoid your label mate-”

He narrowed his eyes at her and pursed his lips before growling lowly, “My label mate is a home wrecker who makes the love of my life upset of course I’m going to avoid her, what, are you crazy?”

Finally looking up to meet his eyes she bit her lip and carefully watched as he eyes softened and he once again wiped her tears away.  Hiccupping a little she questioned once again, “So…you don’t hate me?”

He hugged her as tight as he could and shook his head in disbelief before speaking in a soft, somewhat demanding voice.  “Babo have you been paying attention to a word I said?  Sure we’ll have our problems and we’ve got a few we need to work through now and there will be more in the future but I could never hate you.  The thought of it makes me sick to my stomach.  So stop asking you silly girl.”

Without a single thought she stood on her tip toes and kissed him with as much passion and pent up frustration she could clinging onto him as he lifted her up and kissed her back with just as much passion.  He pushed her up against the wall, securely holding her against him as she moved to wrap her arms around neck and buried her fingers in his hair.  She shifted against him restlessly as his tongue slid over her lower lip demanding entrance which she did grant almost immediately. 

Their heated kiss broke almost instantly when there was a knock at the door.  Before anyone could say anything Sung-hee pecked his lips again and mumbled, “I love you.”

He smiled a little, “I love you too.”  He kissed her again only to have their kiss interrupted by the knocking at the door.  “What?”  He growled in annoyance and if Sung-hee wasn’t in such a daze she would have laughed. 

“I know you’re busy but we’re leaving in fifteen minutes to meet the boys and I need you to make sure you have everything.”  Instantly Sung-hee and Thunder were forced back into reality and they both wished they hadn’t. 

Thunder sighed before looking at the door, “Right I’ll be ready soon.”  He spoke loud enough for Kaang to hear and with a satisfied mumble the older male left.  Thunder looked down at Sung-hee and gave a small smile.  “Is it bad I completely forgot about the tour?”

She shook her head and looked up at him with a small smile on her lips.  “Is it bad that I don’t want you to go but I do at the same time?”

He kissed her forehead and pulled her off the door but still held her in a tight hug.  “Not at all.”

“I should probably go so you can get ready.”  She didn’t make a move to leave from his arms though and he made no move to let her go.

“You don’t want to come?”  He sounded a little disappointed at her decision.

Forcing herself to pull back from him a little bit she gave a small smile and stood on her tip toes and pecked his lips and then his cheek.  “Delphine is waiting outside for me and I think she’s planning either victory dinner or ice cream night.  Besides the press already had a field day last time and I’m certain a plus don’t want to see me in every airport photo.”

He understood her point of view and he wanted to argue that he didn’t care about what the a plus did and they loved her but with Delphine involved who was still a mystery to the public eye he couldn’t.  Still didn’t mean he liked it.  Pouting a little he hugged her tighter for a moment before letting her go and smoothed out her hair a bit.  “Alright, alright I’ll call you as soon as we land I promise.”

“I’ll wait impatiently like always.”  There was still a bit of tension in the air from the earlier arguing and they both knew that when he got back they would have some issues to work out.  But as long as they worked through it together Sung-hee couldn’t find a reason to be upset.  Other than having to wait for him to return for a month, which would be torture.

Hesitantly she turned to open the door wishing that she didn’t have to but she did feel a lot lighter and at ease than when she first entered.  “Oh and Sung-hee?”  She turned to him with a questioning look on her face.  “You’re on probation you have to make pancakes whenever we want and you have to go to karaoke with us every weekend.  No questions asked, Delphine too.”

At his no questions asked tone she smiled genuinely and nodded knowing that Delphine would be perfectly alright with this probation of sorts as well.  “I think we can handle that.” She turned back to the door and just as she was about to close it she poked her head back in.  “Oh and Sanghyun?”

He turned from his suitcase with a slightly surprised look.  “Yes?”

“I love you.”

His expression softened and he smiled softly, “I love you too.” 

Smiling softly to herself she closed the door behind her and turned to find Kaang standing there.  Not sure what else to do she gave him a small bow and started to leave but right as she passed him he placed a hand on her shoulder.  “Sung-hee as much as I care about you and Sanghyun as his manager and hyung if this happens again I’m going to have to get involved.

“Trust me it won’t.” 

A few minutes later Sung-hee found herself back outside where Delphine was leaning again her motorcycle grumbling to herself.  The second she spotted Sung-hee she darted straight for the older girl and hugged her tightly.  “So how did it go?  Are you guys good again?  Why aren’t you seeing him off to Japan?  Your lip gloss is smudged did you kiss?  What did he say about Rena?  What-”  Sung-hee covered Delphine’s mouth with her hand and shook her head.

“It went fine a little shaky at first but fine.  We’re alright though we need to work some things out.  Because you’re here and you can’t see them off with me.  Yes I kissed him silly best friend.  She’s a home wrecker and he hates her and I think that about covers it yes?”  Sung-hee didn’t take her hand off Delphine’s mouth so instead the Japanese girl just nodded slowly.  “Good now we’re going to go to Dunkin Donuts okay and stuff our faces in victory but first I wanna make a quick pit stop.” 

Sung-hee finally removed her hand and Delphine stuck her tongue out a bit in annoyance.  “Fine by me but where are we going?”

“J.Tune Camp.”

It didn’t take even a second for Delphine to know what was running through Sung-hee’s mind.  With a boisterous cheer she hopped on her motorcycle and drove the two of them as fast as she could to their target.  The new dorm was actually closer to the building and with Delphine’s driving they arrived even faster.  Sung-hee knew her friend would have driven on the sidewalk to get there faster if she had to. 

With each step through the building that she made Sung-hee grew more and more confident.  No worker bothered to stop her as she checked through the dance rooms and Delphine was just as excited as she was.  In one of the last studios she found Rena practicing her second single and Sung-hee chuckled darkly before pushing the door open as hard as she could. 

Rena turned as smug as ever but Sung-hee didn’t let that affect her this time.  Stomping over she slapped Rena clear across the face.  “Well Sung-hee you’re just upset it’s understa-”

Growling, Sung-hee resisted the urge to actually punch her this time.  “Listen here you home wrecking gold digging piece of trash.  I shouldn’t even bother trying to get this through your thick head because you’re a lost cause.”

She still hadn’t wiped that smug expression off her face probably thinking that she still had some sort of backup plan in place incase all of her work failed.  “Oh Sung-hee dear whatever-”

Sung-hee slapped her other cheek and finally Rena looked shocked enough to actually listen.  “I said listen not jabber on and on you .”  She waited for Rena to do something and after a few second Sung-hee nodded satisfied.  “Now then I’m only going to say this once so listen well.  I won’t allow myself to be tricked anymore and neither will Sanghyun.  And,” she stepped closer and narrowed her eyes at Rena, “if you try and pull this again you’ll find those lovely nights you like to spend in Hongdae plastered all over the internet.  My brother does have some of the best people in PR and his own private investigators so I dare you to test me.”  Rena looked terrified with the mention of her weekend adventures and Sung-hee stepped back rather satisfied with herself. 

“Y-you you wouldn’t dare!”

“Try me.”  Slowly she pulled out her phone and pretended to dial Hyo.  “Hey oppa about those pictures-”

Squeaking in horror Rena reached out to grab the phone only to have Sung-hee back up a bit and hold the phone away from her.  “No fine you win alright you win!”

“So, you’ll never bother Sanghyun and me again?  No matter how much you want him?”  She pursed her lips in aggravation but nodded stiffly in compliance to Sung-hee’s request. “Good.”  Turning Sung-hee looked arms with Delphine who casually flicked Rena off before they walked out.  At the last minute she held open the door again.  “Oh and Rena?”  Rena turned with an annoyed expression.  “I didn’t win anything I never lost him in the first place.”  With that she let the door close and marched proudly to the lobby. 

Delphine, who was still in awe took her arm out of Sung-hee’s and placed it around Sung-hee’s shoulder.  While she had been hoping for a little more hitting she was proud of her best friend for keeping it much more civil than she actually would.  “You’re my idol you know that?”

With a grin on her lips Sung-hee nodded happily and bowed a little to the receptionist who was stunned to see the girls leaving so soon.  “Yup.  Now, let’s go stuff our faces and fangirl over Infinite’s new song Paradise.”

Laughing heartily at the sudden subject change, Delphine let go of Sung-hee’s shoulder and stuffed her hands in her pockets.  “Girl I’m telling you Sunggyu is the iest.”

“Nope Myungsoo is.”

“What is with you and visuals?”

“What is with you and leaders?”

With slightly narrowed eyes Delphine poked Sung-hee’s side with a small pout.  “Touché.  But still you have to admit he’s pretty damn attractive.”

Sung-hee just smiled and hopped on the motorcycle ignoring Delphine’s demands for confirmation.  Thinking back on it she was amazed things turned out this well.  But she knew that it never would have happened without Delphine and she knew as well that Delphine wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.  But Sung-hee couldn’t help but wonder, as they drove at a much safer speed to Dunkin Donuts, what the future held.