GongGongPow: Yeah so then Captainbot had to get a new head.

ShyDancer94: omg kekeke. Was Papa YG mad?

GongGongPow: Erm yeah! >< He yelled at us for like an hour.

ShyDancer94: Well at least Captainbot got head.

ShyDancer94: I mean not head like that. \( ^o^)/  

ShyDancer94: U know what I mean. A head. Not head.

Minzy bit her lip, trying not to laugh. She quickly glanced over at CL, who was lying on Bom’s bed with her headphones on, seemingly lost in her own little world. She then glanced down at Dara and Bom, who were sitting together on the floor, giggling over something they were reading online. Even though none of them were paying attention to her, Minzy still felt weird about texting with Kai while the girls were in the room, especially when there was something personal she had been hoping to ask him.

They had been texting each other for weeks, finding some relief in being able to vent to each other about life on tour. Those on the SM Starship seemed to be having just as crazy a time, largely because there were so many idols on board that ship. Whereas the YG Starship only had Big Bang and 2NE1 on board (with rumors, however, that other YG idols would join them soon), the SM Starship was loaded with nearly every group on contract.

What Minzy was wondering was, if there were so many people Kai could talk to on his own ship, why he was bothering with her? She had wanted to ask him that since they first began texting but didn’t have the courage, not until right now. She just needed to know.

GongGongPow: Can I ask u something?

As soon as she wrote that, she cringed. She should’ve just come out and asked rather than asked if she could ask. She quickly typed out her next message, pressing Send before she could second-guess herself.

GongGongPow: What made u decide to start talking to me?

She squeezed her eyes closed, not daring to look at the screen on her star phone lest she have to read her own words. But then, when her phone didn’t immediately vibrate to notify her of a response, she got worried and opened her eyes. There was her question still, the words clearly printed on the screen, hanging there with no response. Finally, after what had to be at least a full minute of dread on her part, she felt the vibration and saw his reply.

ShyDancer94: Actually when we first started talking it was because I was hoping u would talk to Dara for me about something but then I liked talking to u and forgot about Dara.

Minzy blinked furiously as she read his text. All this time, she had been hoping that he was interested in her, but he was really interested in… Dara? She read his text again, analyzing every word. …but then I liked talking to u… What did that mean? He changed his mind about Dara? Minzy still didn’t understand, and because of that, she didn’t know how to reply with anything other than more questions.

GongGongPow: What do you mean?

She continued staring at the screen, anxiously awaiting his response.

ShyDancer94: What do YOU mean?

“Aish, what’s with this guy!?” Minzy exclaimed. Dara and Bom stopped what they were doing and looked up at her, and Minzy then realized she had spoken her thoughts aloud.

“Who are you talking to over there?” Dara asked, as she and Bom stood from the floor and walked over to Minzy’s bed.

“No one,” Minzy said. Lowering her voice, she said, “Just Kai-oppa.”

Suddenly, Kai texted a series of messages. 

ShyDancer94: All I meant was that I started talking to you because I wanted to ask about Dara and g-strings

ShyDancer94: Damn autocorrect!

ShyDancer94: omg not g-string. G-DRAGON. Why phone change to g-strings? ><

ShyDancer94: Okay just gonna tell u. So Luhan has been wanting to ask her out for long time but too shy. So when I saw u at rest station I was going to ask u if she’s still with g-strings but then we talked and I forgot.

ShyDancer94: I meant G-DRAGON! Aish.

“What’s he saying?” Dara asked, as she plopped down beside Minzy on the bed and peered over at the screen.

Minzy finished reading, happy that there was still hope for her and Kai, and then passed her star phone to Dara, who read the messages with a hint of a smile on her face.

“Luhan likes me?” Dara asked.

Minzy shrugged and smiled.

“Oh my god,” Bom said. “I totally ship you two!”

“What!?” Dara playfully pushed Bom. “Why are you talking like a fangirl?”

“You don’t even know how much fanfiction Bommie reads,” Minzy said to Dara. “When it’s just me and Bom here, that’s all she does.”

Bom now playfully pushed Minzy. “You promised you wouldn’t tell!”

Minzy laughed and looked back at the message. “Well, what should I text back? Should I tell him you’re interested?”

Dara bit her lip, wishing she had more time to think about this.

Just then, Seungri’s voice came through the intercom. “Girls! Let me in! I’m boooored!”

Dara threw one of Minzy’s pillows over to Bom’s bed, where CL was still resting, listening to music. The pillow hit CL right in her face.

“Yah!” CL sat up and pulled out her earbuds. “What do you want?”

“Seungri’s at the door,” Dara said.

“Go open the door for your lovebird,” Bom said, smiling.

“Aish, you’re not going to let that go, are you?” CL asked, as she walked over to open the door.

Seungri was standing in the entrance, smiling. “Hey, ladies! What are you all doing?”

No one answered him. CL went back over to Bom’s bed and popped her earbuds back in. Dara, Bom, and Minzy, meanwhile, continued to huddle around Minzy’s starphone.

Seungri shrugged and sat at the foot of Minzy’s bed, staring at the three girls, who continued to talk as if he wasn’t even there.

“You need to be with someone who’s not going to take you for granted,” Bom quietly said to Dara.

“Yeah,” Minzy said. “Jiyong treats you like crap.”

And Luhan is sooooo cute,” Bom said.

“Luhan?” Seungri asked, confused as to what they were talking about.

Dara rolled her eyes. “Seungri-yah, don’t go back and tell Jiyong any of this, okay?”

Bom shrugged. “Who cares if he tells Jiyong? Maybe then Jiyong will get the hint that other guys are into you and he needs to step it up if he really cares!”

Dara smiled. Maybe it would be good to make G-Dragon jealous.

At that moment, Dara’s starphone rang. She didn’t recognize the number. “Omo, you think this is Luhan?” she quietly asked, glancing at the girls while holding her phone out.

“Answer it!” Bom squealed, as she bounced excitedly.

Dara swiped to receive the call but broke down in giggles before she could answer.

“Hello?” a somewhat awkward voice spoke out on the other end of the line.

Dara suddenly stopped giggling. It didn’t sound like Luhan at all. The voice was a bit older, a bit deeper. “Erm, hello?” Dara asked.

“Noona?”

Dara’s thoughts raced at that moment. Who was this guy calling her noona and making her feel old?

“Noona, it’s Donghae.”

Dara slapped her hand against , her eyes wide as she glanced at the girls.

“Who is it?” Bom and Minzy asked.

Dara covered the phone with her hand. “It’s Donghae!” she said, in somewhat of a loud whisper. She cleared and returned the phone to her ear, trying to play it cool. “Ai, Donghae. Been a long time. How are you?”

“Good, good. I’ve just been, erm, just thinking about you and…”

Seungri raced into his and G-Dragon’s room. “Hyung! Hyung!” He tore the blankets off G-Dragon and shook him, trying to wake him up. “Get up, hyung!”

“What the hell, maknae?” G-Dragon mumbled, as he rolled over, his back to Seungri.

Seungri folded his arms across his chest. “Fine, guess you don’t want to know that Dara is heading down to the docking bay to leave for her date with Donghae.”

“What!?” G-Dragon sat right up, his eyes wide.

“Oh, you awake now?”

“Stop playing, Seungri-yah! What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m telling you. First, they were talking about Luhan and how Dara was going to go out with him, but then Donghae called her and now she and Donghae are going out! Like, a real date! Right now!”

G-Dragon’s mouth hung open as he sat there, first confused, then mad. “ing SM bastards. I can’t believe this. I just can’t… this is a joke, right? You think they’re pranking us again?”

“I don’t think so,” Seungri said. “I mean, Donghae has always been into her. Remember when he invited her to his concert? And then that other time when–”

“You think I want to hear all that?” G-Dragon interrupted, his anger subsiding as his hurt took over. He shook his head and looked down at his lap. In a way, he expected this. He knew that he hadn’t been the best boyfriend, if he could be called that at all. He had just wanted to play the field a bit more, especially when that field stretched for galaxies with all sorts of women wanting a piece of him. All this time, he had left Dara hanging, just assuming that he’d eventually settle down with her once he had fully exploited all of his playboy potential, but now… now it seemed that she had finally grown tired of it.

“What are you going to do?” Seungri asked.

“What do you think I’m going to do?” G-Dragon muttered. He grabbed a pair of jeans from the floor and quickly pulled them on over his boxer shorts. “I’m going to stop her!”

Seungri smiled, a lovey-dovey look in his eyes. “You going to tell her you love her? And that you’re sorry? And that you only want to be with her?”

G-Dragon scoffed. He couldn’t let Seungri know how hurt he was. And he certainly couldn’t let him know that he would beg Dara to stay if that’s what it took. “Are you kidding? I’m going to set that woman straight!” He puffed out his chest, trying to play up the machismo to hide his true feelings. “I’m going to show her who’s boss!” he said.

T.O.P., Taeyang, and Daesung had been walking down to the elevator pod, which they were going to take down to the docking bay to wait for their pizza delivery, when they suddenly saw G-Dragon and Seungri come flying down the corridor.

“Yo, yo, yo,” Taeyang said, waving. “What’s the rush?”

“No time to talk!” Seungri yelled out as he and G-Dragon ran past the three boys.

T.O.P., Taeyang, and Daesung then instinctively began running, too, crashing into the elevator pod with G-Dragon and Seungri.

“Destination?” the robotic voice asked, after all the boys were inside.

“First floor!” G-Dragon yelled.

“You headed to the docking bay?” T.O.P. asked.

G-Dragon nodded.

“That’s where we’re going, too,” Taeyang said, as the elevator pod began its descent. “We got a nice hot pizza coming with some weird alien toppings on it.”

“Alien toppings?” Seungri asked.

“Yeah, there’s like all these different toppings that do different things,” Taeyang said. “I got the penile pineapple on my third of the pizza,” he said, smiling. “Supposed to make my, erm, thing bigger.”

“What?” G-Dragon hadn’t really been listening, his thoughts focused only on Dara, until he caught the mention of penile pineapple. “Are you serious?”

“Yep,” Taeyang said, smiling.

“What did you get, hyung?” Seungri asked T.O.P.

“What do you think he got?” Daesung asked. “The psychedelic mushrooms, of course!”

“That figures,” G-Dragon said.

“Well, what did you get then, Daesunggie?” Seungri asked.

“Me? Oh, I just got plain.”

Everyone stared at him.

“I had enough alien weirdness back on Splaarsh,” Daesung said. “I just want nice normal human food.”

The elevator pod door suddenly opened to the first floor. They all saw that the air lock signal was flashing, which meant that the outside docking bay door was open, so the boys quickly grabbed space helmets from the rack lining the corridor and put them on before rushing into the docking bay.

Once inside, they saw CL, Bom, and Minzy standing in the middle of the docking bay, looking out to the black star-filled space outside the open door and waving goodbye.

“She left already?” G-Dragon asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer. He ran to the edge of the docking bay and looked out, seeing a black stretch limo cruiser, sleek and shiny, sputtering away, the sound of the engine dissipating as it zoomed off to its destination. G-Dragon watched it leave, breathing so heavily that his space helmet fogged up.

“Dara left?” Daesung asked, looking at the girls. “Where’d she go?”

“On a date with Donghae,” Minzy said.

Hearing this, T.O.P. now understood why G-Dragon was in such a rush to get down here. He walked over to edge of the docking bay where G-Dragon was still standing, wanting to comfort him but not knowing what to say.

“I took her for granted,” G-Dragon quietly said. “I totally admit that. I just thought, you know, she’ll always be around. I should’ve known that she wouldn’t wait around forever for me.”

T.O.P. listened, not saying anything. What G-Dragon said seemed to echo inside T.O.P.’s head, and he realized then that he was doing the same with Bom. All this time, he had been denying his feelings for Bom, seeing no reason to let those feelings out because he had assumed that she would always be around, too, that there was no rush.

He turned around to look at Bom. For a moment, he imagined himself running up to her and just kissing her – no warning, no hesitation… just taking her into his arms and kissing her – but then he realized that the space helmets would impede such a fantasy from playing out and so he quickly dismissed those thoughts and returned to face the black space outside.

Suddenly, everyone heard the rattle of a cheap, rickety cruiser heading their way.

“Pizza’s here!” Daesung said, as he ran to join G-Dragon and T.O.P. at the edge of the docking bay.

“You ordered pizza?” CL asked. “How come you didn’t ask us first?”

“You snooze, you lose!” Taeyang said.