There are b-sides to every story...

Just stay beside me...

Bom talked with Jiyong before leaving and Youngbae asked him to go sober up a little while Seunghyun introduced Dara as he stopped by each of his friends to greet them. The Nuthang already knew Dara since way back but, at that time, she wasn't officially Jiyong's girl yet. They did suspect though, why was she always in his parties when she wasn't significant, right? Jo Sungmin gave Dara a hug but the other guys were quick to pull him away.

"You don't do that on Jiyong's birthday, Bro!" Utak told him while shaking his head.

"And its bad to brag that you're close to her!" Jong Hyun added. "'Sup Dara?" Jong Hyun was at the MV of Falling in Love and Dara knew him already. She smiled at him, "I'm great!"

"You look so fragile." she heard a girl say then laughed when Chaerin said, "But she can kick ."

"Hey, you should eat, you're bones are sticking out." Soohyuk said with worry. "It seems you're getting blond-er everyday!" The guys teased his lame joke. Chaerin was close by, giving Dara extra support knowing how she easily gets awkward with people and she was smiling at how the usually reserved Sandara Park was handling herself with Jiyong's wild clique.

"Look who's talking." Chaerin shot back at Soohyuk. These two may not be together, but they were close. They have both travelled with Jiyong before to other countries and they got used to each other easily since then.

"Tabi!" Harry Kim held Top's arm and they shared a man hug. "It's been a while. Oh, pretty little Dara is here." Dara turned to look at the guy who just mentioned her name and she smiled. "I'm so honored and glad to meet you, finally. I heard you were busy." He spoke so fast, that Dara didn't have the chance to say anything. "By the way, I'd like you to meet Kiko. She's been eager to meet you."

Harry moved aside and the model, Kiko Mizuhara, who had a fling with Kwon Jiyong before as the public believed and the company denied, walked forward and extended her hand to the 2NE1 member. Kiko knew how to introduce herself in Hangguk and she did it fluently. Nuthang stilled, watching the 2 girls, Chaerin walked forward to stand beside D, Jiyong and Youngbae were talking with another guest when they noticed the silence and they all looked to what was causing it. Seunghyun was a bit irritated by Harry Kim. Why can't he wait when Jiyong was here before introducing Kiko?  But he knew he should have expected this since, whenever Harry and Kiko were in the same country, they were almost always together. Jiyong have been spotted with them one time and it proved to be problematic causing the company to deny rumors again. Everyone from the YG family were more careful now and they protect each other at all costs.

Dara smiled, accepted Kiko's hand and introduced herself as well. "Chaerin has mentioned you before when you worked at a shoot in Japan. You're very pretty." Dara said sincerely. "O, ne, I hope I get to work with you in a shoot as well." The awkwardness in the room wasn't lost to her. She grinned at the other girl and looked at the other occupants of the room before saying in her most convincing hiphop impersonation, "Y'all can chill, ya' know."

Everyone laughed then held their glasses up as they toast to her. The tension eased and Jiyong went to her side to excuse her from Kiko and introduce her to his foreign guests.

After exchanging pleasantries, Jiyong, Seunghyun, Youngbae, Chaerin and Dara went to sit in a corner and they urged Dara to eat since she hasn't really had dinner yet. Youngbae and Seunghyun ate with her. Jiyong got some food from her plate every now and then. The party continued on the other side of the room.

"Are you sure you weren't caught?" Chaerin asked Youngbae.

"Ne, I trust Top-hyung's superpowers, you know." Youngbae teased the elder Bigbang member. "Chinja, people are still wondering where you are until now."

"If you don't want to give them reason to write bad things about you, then you better stay low on their radar. Jiyong's been struggling with that for so long now."

"Ne, and I haven't succeeded 1 bit." he said sourly as he ate from Dara's chopsticks which she put in front of him. "Thanks, babe. I was scared that you weren't coming."

"Aigoo, I told you I wouldn't miss it. Did you see the cake?" He nodded, dropped a kiss on her shoulder and thanked her. "Sajangnim and I were going over the episodes and which artists we're featuring next. We're not sure if we do Seungri first or we continue with Seung Yoon. Its all really confusing. We don't even know when's the next episode going to be released."

"Seungri's album is coming out tomorrow, the 19th?" Jiyong asked and Chaerin nodded.

"O, where is he?" Dara asked.

"He went home early. He just came to greet me and say hello to the other guests. He needs to rest for tomorrow. He's really busy." Jiyong answered.

"He's all grown up now." Dara observed. "We were introduced to the trainees earlier. I stopped to imagine us as trainees again and I almost cried knowing that I didn't get the cut!" They all laughed.

"I haven't even met them yet." Jiyong said. "I mean, like face to face introduced and all. I only know Seung Yoon and the one from Kpop star. Don't they have the same name?"

"Aigoo, you're getting old!" Chaerin joked. "In any case, I feel sorry for the team that's going to be eliminated. They all worked equally for this." The others nodded.

"We can make Super Junior's Juniors now if they all debut." Top joked but the others just looked at him, trying to grasp his alien humor.

"Don't they have EXO for that?" Chaerin asked.

"Oh, right."

"There will be too many of them if they were Bigbang Junior, right?" The conversation was getting lame and the other's groaned as Jiyong tried to be funny. "Let's just do a male version of Sonyushidae!" 

After they have eaten, they joined the others again. Dara sat beside Ben as the others danced and sang and everyone was just too rowdy.

"Oppa, I hope they're not bothering you anymore." She was talking about Ben's unfortunate Twitter encounters.

"Its nothing that i can't handle. I'm a tough guy, Dara. Hasn't Jiyong told you that?" Dara chuckled but she wasn't fooled.

"Its that bad, huh?"

"Ne." he admitted. "But I've always had haters on twitter and I say whatever so, poor them if they get affected. You should visit LA and I'll take you around!"

"I'd really love to but I can't say when. We're pretty busy these days."

"Jiyong told me you were in a meeting."

"I was. We had to go over some schedules for Double Park TV and with everything going on in YG, we took some time to finish."

"O, you have a series again?" Dara nodded. Ben and Dara were looking at the crowd as well and he saw Kiko and Jiyong talking to each other. Seunghyun was with them as well. "You're not really, I mean, with Kiko and all."

"Not really."

"But you know…" He couldn't continue and he began to feel awkward.

"Whatever happened between them before, if there ever was, I don't think I should have anything against it because at that time, Jiyong and I weren't exactly together. If you know what I mean? We were, maybe dating but we haven't really labelled anything. So he's free to meet others."

"Don't you get jealous with the girls he gets close to?"

"Oh, crazy jealous! I mean, I'm just human. I try not to though. I trust him. Its human nature to feel jealous at times but I'd rather not let it get to me. If I did, with the list of girls pining for his attention, I might just go mad." Ben chuckled at her statement and gave her a pat on the back.

"He gets jealous a lot too, if I may say so. And he has reason to be." Dara smiled at the older guy. "Danny mentioned to me once, that you may look like a girl in a woman's body but you are really mature and wise beyond your years."

"Danny-oppa has seen me grow up." Dara felt flattered that an old friend said good things about her. "Oppa, you should just unfollow me on twitter."

"Why? What good will that help?"

"It may help lessen attention on you. I just thought that maybe they started bombarding you with questions more when you followed me. Jiyong showed me some of your tweets. I don't want you to have a hard time."

"Oh, thank you, Dara. I'm really touched that you're concerned for me."

"You're Jiyong's friend and he always says, his friends are my friends."

"I'm really honored. Thank you."

"Besides, if you get curious, you can just look up my ID and my page will show up. Its not really private so you can just snoop around and leave me a message."

"I'll do that then." Ben smiled at Dara and he felt already protective of the petite girl who, he surmised, is made of even more tougher stuff that she projects.

Seunghyun brought Jiyong home after whining a lot to Chaerin. The 2NE1 leader told him to leave Dara alone tonight because they had a performance tomorrow.

"Beside's you're drunk!" Chaerin scolded, that you would think, she was older. Dara and Seunghyun just grinned at each other.

"We'll see you tomorrow after the show. I'm going to the company." Dara tried to pacify him. "We can go together at the party that night."

Jiyong sighed but he agreed. "1 last birthday hug."

"It's still your birthday when you wake up and I'm sure you're going to hug her again."

"Fine, a goodnight hug then." Dara held Chaerin back and just gave him what he wanted. "Seunghyun, he's really drunk."

"I know. I'll take care of him. He's not a baby. I've seen him crawl to the bathroom before."

"Hyung, not cool!" Chaerin and Dara just laughed at the birthday boy then they walked to their ride, leaving Seunghyun and Jiyong. The older guy lead him to the car without falling. Jiyong even sent out a tweet but in his drunken state but deleted it when he was sober.

Tweet 8.18.13: @IBGDRGN: Thank you all@&my fans and VIP's

"Dara-unnie! I'll see you tonight!" Dara nodded at Chae before the latter left to meet a street artist who was also GD's guest. She was going to bring him to the party right after dinner.

Instagram Update @harifguzman

Meanwhile, Dara was stressing over so much work so she decided to hit the gym before getting ready for the party.

While at home and just got off the shower, her phone rang and she answered at once when she saw who it was from.

"Hey, its still early."

"I can wait. I'm on my way. Black car, parked at the front." Jiyong said over the receiver.

"All right. Have to hang up now!"

When she got out of her place, a black sedan was waiting for her. It wasn't any car she has seen before but the door opened and she let herself in.

"Hi!"

"Hello! Who's car is this?"

"Borrowed it from Shin."

"Oh, the one who introduced you to skating?" Jiyong nodded. "Why?"

"My car's too conspicuous. I thought i'd drive something less obvious. We have to drop by somewhere first. I'm sure you're going to like it."

"You're the birthday boy yet you have surprises for me? I feel like an awful girlfriend." He reached out for her hand and held it while he drove.

"I like doing these stuff. You know that I do."

A little while later, they stopped at a car store and Dara looked outside. "I think its closed." There was a guy in a suit by the door though and he looked like he was waiting for someone. Jiyong wore his hat to hide his blonde hair and told Dara to do the same then he opened the door for her.

"Why are we here?"

"I want you to see my new baby."

"Baby? Do you want me to kill you now?" Jiyong laughed and got her hand as they walked toward the agent. She stood in Jiyong's shadow as he talked with the guy. Namguk was also there and Dara only noticed when he alighted from his ride and waved at them.

"Really? I can take it out tonight?" The agent nodded and thanked the guy before dragging Dara to the cars parked in front. 

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