If there was anything Donghae despised, it was waking up in the middle of the night and finding himself alienated. He knew he would not be able to sleep unless he felt a some sort of familiarity around him. The thing was, he woke up in the middle of the night and he had a feeling he would not be able to go to sleep again.

                “Hyung?” he called out to the bed on the other side of the room. The light from the bedside lamp gave him the knowledge that Leeteuk was not in his bed. Most probably the leader was out to have another secret date with Taeyeon.  Leeteuk was always kind enough to remain in the room until he was ensured Donghae was asleep, but at times like this, Donghae knew that Leeteuk would not be back until a couple of hours later.

                There was a feeling of insecurity building up inside of him. He did not like (and could not) sleep like this. He was so very tempted to sneak out of the room and go to Eunhyuk’s room, but he remembered that his friend had the tendency to lock out his room lately. Donghae considered to go into the other members room, but on the other hand, a part of him realized that he could not act like this forever. He knew that the other Super Junior members must be very exhausted and they all deserved peaceful sleep without a man snuggled into their bed and stole the blanket in the middle of the night. He sighed. He probably would have to wait for Leeteuk that night.

                There was another thing that he hated about waking up in the middle of the night lately. Waking up alone meant that he had all the time to himself, and as much as he needed good rest, he was not really keen to the idea, especially after the rather abrupt end of his relationship with Yoona. During daylight, he was usually too preoccupied with the Super Junior’s activities and by the time he reached his room, he would be too tired to think of anything. But in such situation where he woke up at night alone, he knew that unwanted thoughts would easily infiltrate his minds.

                It had been almost a month. There were still too many things that he did not understand, but mainly it focused on why Yoona suddenly ended their relationship. He thought they were doing alright. They never had any big quarrel, but their relationship was (at least to him) not boring. He cared a lot about Yoona and he thought that she was feeling the same thing…

“I can’t do this to Jessica-unnie. And mostly, I can’t do this to you. So please, Donghae. Let’s end this…”

                Yes, Yoona cared a lot about him too, but probably it was the problem.

                He groaned because he knew that he understood her reasoning too. He blamed it to his own inconsistency, though. His past relationship with Jessica meant a lot of things to him, after all, she was his first love and probably, just probably, would remain his love. But on the other hand, he cared about Yoona too.

                In the end, he knew that it was him that caused his ended relationship with Yoona.

                He liked her. He liked her so much. But he, himself, was not sure if it was love he was feeling.

                Donghae’s gaze then fell upon the wrapped gift on his desk just across his bed. He deliberated for a while, before he decided to move his body and grabbed the gift. He untied the blue ribbon from the wrapping that he did himself (the closest thing he ever did to a D.I.Y project) and took what was inside. A medium-sized Teddy Bear that he had bought for Yoona. He thought that the happy gleam of the bear’s dark eyes and the wide grin just matched her well. Unfortunately, before he could give the gift to her, she had broken their relationship.

                Donghae stared at the eyes of the Teddy Bear and realized that as much as he wanted to, he could not throw the gift away. It was as if he threw Yoona away. And even though his rational side told him to move on, he knew the emotional side in him would forever forbid him to throw the doll away. There was a complexity of feeling upon looking at the teddy bear.

                But soon he was soon lulled to sleep. Perhaps it was the hectic schedule he had that day, perhaps it was the comfortable warmth of his bed, but Donghae slowly succumbed to the slumber land.

                By the time Leeteuk got back to their room, the first thing he saw was the sight of Donghae asleep as cuddling on a smiling teddy bear.

                 Of all awkward situations, he was always involved in at least one.

                After years, Donghae found himself alone with Jessica Jung in the SM waiting room. Sure, he met her often even after their breakup years ago (could not deny the fact that SNSD and Super Junior were often paired together for entertainment purposes), but this was the first time he was with her again, only the two of them.

                The Ice Princess was casually listening to the music in her i-pod and he wished he brought something to distract him (his own i-pad or Kyuhyun’s Nitendo DS or Siwon’s book or anything, really) but there was nothing. He even forgot his cell phone. And in that waiting room, there was not a single magazine or anything to look at. So Donghae only stared to the white wall across him, awkwardly humming a song.

                “You seem restless lately,” commented Jessica out of the blue. He glanced at her and noticed that she had yanked the earphone away from her ears. Her attention was fully reserved to him. He found something in his stomach churn.

                But he had promised himself years ago to stay (or at least look) calm at her presence. “Is that so? Well, with the new album and all, I guess we are all restless nowadays. So Nyuh Shi Dae must be feeling the same thing.”

                She smiled and everything seemed nostalgic suddenly. “Not that kind of exhaustion. There’s something more. Something’s troubling you lately. Something regarding one my dongsaeng, perhaps?” she inquired earnestly.

                Donghae found himself chuckling. Jessica may have the title as the Ice Princess, but he knew that at times she silently paid attention more than normal people. Perhaps it was what had drawn him to her back then.

                “Perhaps,” he replied noncommittally. “How is she?”

                Jessica blinked. Knowing her habit, she must have a split of second dozing off. But Donghae knew that it did not mean Jessica was not paying attention to him. Well, perhaps she was distracted a little, but it was more of her natural disease than an intentional measure. “Who do you mean?”

                Discomfort crept back inside him. “You know. Yoona.”

                Jessica stared at him for a long time before her eyes turned into a challenging one. “Why don’t you find out yourself?”

                He chuckled again. Jessica always had that kind of effect to him. “You don’t change, Jessica.”

                The high-pitched girl leaned back to her chair. “You too, Oppa.”

                “Really?” he questioned back. There was a nod from the girl and comfortable silence came upon them. There was yet another memory crept inside his mind. Jessica was not a talkative girl, but with her, silence had become so much bearable. He found himself dangerously drawn more to his past, their past. Almost absentmindedly, he broke the silence with a question. “Have you ever wished that we can go back to what we were?”

                “Sometimes. You?”

                “Sometimes,” he answered back.

                Another silence ensued.

                “You’re always going to be my first love, Oppa,” the girl spoke.

           Donghae slowly turned his gaze to his ex girlfriend. There was puzzlement inside, but it was not the puzzlement he had imagined to be. He admitted that sometimes he imagined situations where he and Jessica would fix back their broken knots. In those situations, he had imagined how giddy, how nervous, how blissful he would be.

                He was blissful now that he heard Jessica’s confession. But it was a different kind of bliss. A satisfied one. A relief. It was as if the invisible chain around him had broken. “You’re also always going to be my first love,” he admitted.

                Jessica smiled prettily, genuinely. “But we move on.”

                “You do?” Donghae asked, but not in a way to doubt her or him, only in a curious inquiry.

                “Perhaps,” the blond-haired girl replied. “Wish me luck. This guy is a difficult way to move on.”

                Donghae laughed and somehow he had the image of who she was talking to. “Yeah. Good luck on him.”

                “You too,” she winked.

            “What?” He chuckled again. “Ah no. I don’t intend to move on at the moment. Just…going steady is fine. I think I’ll have to concentrate more on our album’s promotion and –“

           “I heard they’re making another version of Cabi Song, you know,” Jessica spoke suddenly. “You know, hot summer with Taecyeon in swimming trunks and Yoona in a revealing bikini. I heard it’s even going to be more provocative than the first version.”

                He widened his eyes in disbelief. “It’s getting more provocative?” his tone unconsciously rose. How the hell could it be more provocative?! Donghae still remembered the unease feeling he had when Yoona was filming the MV for Cabi Song. He had refrained himself from touching Yoona over the years of knowing her. And Taecyeon could easily touch her intimately –when she was wearing a bikini at that! He had no personal grudge against Taecyeon, but somehow he realized he would not see him the same way again.

                Jessica glanced at the way Donghae’s eyes darkened. She chuckled. A little white lie could not hurt. Ah, she hung out too much with Heechul lately.

                “You can sleep now, Hae. I’m here.”

                Eunhyuk murmured sleepily to his roommate. SM artists were on another trip for the SMTown. It was currently two o’clock in the morning and they had an early program the day after. Donghae knew that he really should have gone to bed. But his eyes couldn’t sleep a wink. It was pretty weird, because Eunhyuk was there and Donghae could usually doze off into sleep easily when Eunhyuk was nearby.

                “Hyukjae, did you see the teddy bear that I usually have in my room?”

                “Hmm? Did you bring it here? Perhaps you left it in our dorm…”

                “No. I’m pretty sure I brought it here,” Donghae frantically searched over in his suitcase.

                “Hae, could you just search it tomorrow? We have to wake up early, you know?”

                “I know but I…” he paused for a while to yank the hotel room’s blanket. “I can’t sleep without it.”

          “Hmm?” Eunhyuk’s replies became more incoherent. The snores came afterwards. Donghae sighed and grabbed his backpack to search the doll there.

                It was not until four o’clock in the morning that his fatigue body gave up. When Eunhyuk woke up at 7, he found that Donghae had fallen asleep on the floor.

               “You’re looking for this?”            

               A teddy bear was held up to the level of his eyes. His teddy bear. But before Donghae could exhale a sigh of relief, he inhaled a sharp intake of breath upon noticing who was holding the teddy bear: Im Yoona.

               He blinked and perhaps gaped his mouth open.  “H-how did you get it?”

            Yoona smiled. “Leeteuk Oppa gave it to me yesterday. He said that you meant this gift for me but he was afraid you would never give it to me, so he had to play the devil one here and stole it from you. That’s seriously pretty much what Leeteuk Oppa said.”

            Donghae cleared his throat uncomfortably. Too bad he cared for Leeteuk too much to get angry at him. Perhaps he had to review his treatment to him later though. Leeteuk always meant good but he also often had the worst way of conveying his good intention.

               But he could handle Leeteuk later on. Im Yoona was preoccupying his mind at the moment. “Ah, yes. I-it was meant for you.”

               “Was?”

               “Well, I thought you would not want to accept it after… our breakup.”

              There was a second of dark haze on her eyes, but just trust her to almost always maintain a cheerful composure. “Why would I not want it? This teddy bear is too cute.”

                She smiled.

                He smiled back.

                “How have you been, Yoona?”

                “…Good. You?”

                He automatically wanted to respond the same way she did, but somehow he remembered the little promise he had with her to remain honest (and not that Donghae needed to promise Yoona about it to begin with. Honesty was one of his natural characteristic). “Unfortunately, not really.”

              The pair of doe eyes in front of him looked too disappointed. “Why?”

              Why? He did not know why exactly. Lack of sleep, definitely. Heavy workloads, as usual –but that was nothing new. There was something that made him restless lately, Jessica was right. A new kind of insecurity that even sleeping beside Eunhyuk could not heal. A sort of agitation that made him insomniac almost every night. A weird uneasiness against Taecyeon. A longing desire to…

              “I miss you,” he admitted. Realization came late and red started to tint his cheeks. He sometimes wondered whether he had split personality or not. When it came to professional job, he really had no problem saying all those lines that could make a girl melt. But when it came to… her, words just seemed wrong, like they were never good enough.

             But a part of him realized that he needed to express it out. He needed to. And she needed to know. So Donghae resumed his dialogue, “I… honestly don’t know whether this is love or not. But I just… want you to be beside me. I want to be beside you. And –“

              “I let you go because I want you to be happy, you know,” the girl said.

           He stared at her and warmth seeped inside his heart. Yoona often claimed that he was too good and too kind for his own good. He thought otherwise. He thought that she was too kind for her own good. There was sincere care in her –that she was not afraid to let it overflow into his soul. Such endless patience and care… perhaps it was what healed his wound and soothed his soul…

              He did not know whether it was love or not, but he thought that with Im Yoona, he was the closest to it.

             “Can’t we start again?” Donghae asked. There was a hint of desperation in his voice. He was making himself a weak man, he knew. But it wasn’t what he cared the most at the moment. “Being away from you honestly does not make me any happier, you know.”

               Yoona’s eyes widened. She looked like she could not believe what she was seeing, what she was hearing…

               But he knew that she would believe what she was feeling.

            He slowly pulled her into his embrace. And suddenly all seemed so much better. His insecurity slowly disappeared, his anxiety faded away. The smell of faint vanilla from her calmed his senses and he tightened his hold around her.

                “Thank you.” He heard her murmur between sobs. He did not understand. It was him who should have been grateful.

                “No, thank you, Yoona.”

                He would never let her go again.

                .

                .          

                And after what seemingly like few minutes (it must have been longer than that, but he felt time just flew fast when he was with her), they let go of the embrace. He smiled shyly at her and she beamed happily. Her wide smile made him remember one thing. “By the way, Yoona?”

                “Yeah?”

                “Do you mind if I get the Teddy Bear back?” he asked with hopeful eyes.

                Her eyes blinked. “You stingy Donghae. This is meant for me. It’s cute. I like it. And it’s for me,” she cutely said with a playful pout.

                Donghae sighed. “Unfortunately it is impossible now. Since I cannot ask you to sleep by my side now, I will need that teddy bear as an exchange.” He winked as he mischievously pulled the teddy bear away from her grasp.

                Yoona could not protest. Her blushing cheek was a problem too much to handle.