The moment Henry hears a knock on his dorm door at one in the morning he knows exactly who it is. His guess is proved correct when he opens his door groggily and a figure with short blonde hair and a sniffling nose appears before him. 

“But we were doing so well, Amber. Three weeks was our record,” he said and she instantly walked into the apartment and towards his bedroom. 
“I know,” she whispered as he shut the door behind her and followed her into the dark room. 
It was their little ritual ever since Kibum had broken up with Amber, leaving her absolutely broken, hurt, and vulnerable. It hurt Henry to his core to see her like that. Crying over a man that never truly loved her like she should be loved and losing her nothing-can-touch-me face. That face she wore when people wouldn’t accept her tomboy-ish image, that face she wore when SM didn’t ask her to come back right away. That face Henry had to put on himself as well. This wasn’t the Amber he knew, the Amber that was his best friend. 

She had been able to go three weeks without calling him on the phone trying not to sob or showing up at his doorstep needing to be comforted. As he sat next to her on his bed he asked softly, “When will you ever be able to get over him Am? It’s been almost a year now.” 
He knew the lump in grew, threatening tears, as she heard his words and using the nickname only he called her. 
“I just don’t know. I thought I was good; over him, until we started recording the Lollipop music video. It just, opened everything back up. Seeing that he was perfectly fine without me while I was- am- broken and left behind.” 
Henry reached for her hand and her thumb with his, not saying anything because he knew she had more to say, he always knew. 
“I was able to get through the recording fine, mostly just because I have enough pride not to let anyone see me like that over a guy- a guy that didn’t even care about me. Back at the dorm, you don’t even know how much I just wanted to cry, but I can’t let my members see me like that. You know how they worry. I wanted to be strong, keep this record going and not bother you anymore. But I just couldn’t do it anymore,” her voice cracked as she uttered the last sentence. 

“You’re not a bother to me, Amber,” he responded sincerely. 
“I just couldn’t be alone tonight,” she held her head in her hands that rested on her knees. 
“You can stay here tonight.” He knew he didn’t even have to say those words, but he offered anyway. Even before their breakup, when Amber would always sleep over on those especially difficult nights, they would have sleepovers as best friends. They would consist of watching movies until two in the morning, eating whipped cream from the can, and staying in their pajamas all the next day. She even kept a pillow, extra set of pajamas, and a toothbrush at his dorm. Most people would misunderstand their relationship, but they were best friends, inseparable, and there was no physical attraction- at least on Amber’s side, Henry knew. They’d been sharing secrets, each other’s shoulder to cry on, cheering each other up since before either of them debuted. They both faced the same problems- living in a foreign world and faced with the challenges of not being accepted as part of their groups. They had more in common than she and Key would have any day. 

As they lay side by side in the dark, Henry was wide awake listening to Amber’s slow breathing. As soon as he was certain she was asleep he wrapped an arm around her. 
“Thanks Henry,” she said, clearly not asleep. 
After recovering from the shock and slight embarrassment at being caught he said, “For what?”
“Just always being there and putting up with me. I’m pretty sure you’re the only person in the world that just gets me.”
Henry felt his heart clench at those words, but he knew she only meant them as a friend. “No problem Ambear,” he responded with yet another one of his lame nicknames for her, but he knew she liked it a lot more than being called a lizard or a ‘he’ (that she just shrugged off by jokingly responding ‘hyung, hyung’ to cover up how much it really hurt her). 
He just watched as she laughed and closed her eyes, not daring to fall asleep until she was. Because for him it was such a comfort to know someone else was up when you go to sleep and he and Amber are so alike he knew it’d be the same for her. 

The next morning they, as tradition called for, sat in their pajamas eating cold pizza and drinking cans of coke. Laughing with Amber who sat across from him, Henry felt a warm buzz in the back of his stomach. Did kibum feel like this when he was with her? Did he cherish their small moments together like Henry did? Did he know her enough to know what made her happy? Did he deserve her? 
Probably not; because if he did he would never let her go. 

“In theory we were supposed to work, we were supposed to last. Opposites are supposed to attract, we were supposed to complement each other perfectly. But there’s a big difference between ‘supposed to’ and ‘reality’ it seems,” she said to her soda can breaking the comfortable silence that had settled around them. 

Henry knew she was just stating her thoughts, that she wasn’t really expecting a response from him, but he answered anyway. “You don’t need someone who’s different than you, to ‘complement’ you. You need someone who gets you. Someone who knows that you twist the tabs off of your soda can when you’re nervous, that you like to ‘forget’ your jacket at home so that you can borrow mine because you like my cologne, and that you secretly love chick flicks- a walk to remember being your favorite. You need someone who will do the smallest of things with you, the things that only they know will make you happy, like going to the park with you to swing on the swing set just because. You need someone who can understand you, no matter what language- although them actually speaking those same languages is a plus too.” He paused before forcing out this next sentence before he lost his guts, “You need someone like me.” 
Henry, embarrassed at his confession, looked down at his plate. Suddenly a half eaten piece of crust landed on his plate. And when he looked up he saw Amber smiling at him. That’s when he knew she felt the same way, because Amber’s favorite part of the pizza is the crust and she never gives it to anyone.