“Annyeong, mommy,” I answered.

“Uki! Good thing I caught you in time. Are you with your brother right now?” my mother asked me.

I glared at Siwon. “Sadly.”

“Uh-oh. What’s going on?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just normal sibling things I suppose.”

My mother sighed like she often does whenever Siwon and I get into a fight. “Can you put me on speaker? I want your brother to hear this, too.”

“Mommy, the rest of the members are sitting here, too.”

“Oh, it’s okay. It’s nothing big.”

I sighed. “Alrighty, if you say so.” I hit the speaker button and shoved the phone to Siwon. “Here, so you can raise my $3000 phone bill even more.” I gave him a snide smile.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh shut up with your smart aleck responses.”

“Aish. You two need to learn to be nice to each other,” my mother complained.

“Mom, you have no idea how much trouble this girl causes,” Siwon said into the phone.

“Excuse me?! Without me here to cook and clean, you guys would not only be living in a pig sty, but you’d starve to death!” I exclaimed indignantly.

“Not true! We have Alex or Ryeowook!” he responded.

“Oh yes, because they just love to cook for fifteen guys that are SO ungrateful for the food on the table.”

“Yah! You two stop it right now!” my mother exclaimed through the phone. “Jeez, not even a full two months and you guys are already about to kill each other.”

Siwon and I looked at each other. Despite the fact that we sometimes fight to the death, and we call each other horrible names, and we refuse to talk to each other, and we slam doors in each others’ face, and we yell at each other, we would drop it all if we physically saw that it hurt our parents.

“Sorry, mommy,” I said at the same as Siwon said, “Sorry, mom.”

“Any who, I called to be the bearer of some bad news,” my mother said, her tone immediately changing. That sly woman. She knows how to work the system…We’re too much alike. -__- “Uki, your father and I are going to Europe.”

“WHAT?! WHAT FOR?!” I immediately exclaimed, grabbing the phone from Siwon, who looked shocked from my sudden outburst.

“Well, we just thought since both you and Siwon are out of the house for the time being, we wanted to have a little romantic getaway.”

“EWW! MOTHER!”

The other guys in the room snickered. I glared.

“Uki, calm down. I just wanted to call to tell you two things. One, we want you to stay with your brother for a little while longer.”

“Mother! In case you haven’t noticed, he and I are on the brink of killing each other at the moment. I don’t think ‘a little while longer’ is gonna help anything.”

“Uki…” she said with a little hint of danger in her voice.

“Mother…” I responded with the same tone.

She sighed. “WHY must you be so difficult.”

“Because I’m your daughter,” I stated matter-of-factly.

Siwon took the phone from me. “Don’t worry, mom. She’ll be staying here with us for however long you want her to.”

I silently sent death glares toward him.

“Thank you. I can always count on you for keeping an eye on your little sister,” my mother said.

I scoffed. “What a ridiculous statement, mother. I’m not one who needs an eye kept on her, nor am I particularly little either.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, honey. Oh, and Troy called. He left a message asking why you won’t answer your phone.”

“What? He never called.”

“Uki, the boy sounded pretty desperate. I’m sure he called.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, who is this boy?” Siwon interjected, going into protective older brother mode.

“Don’t you know? He’s Uki’s—“

“Okay!” I said loudly, grabbing the phone and switching it off speaker. “I think I’ll finish this conversation in my room.”

“Uki—!”

I quickly dodged any questions and ran to my room, shutting and locking the door.

Alex’s POV~

The entire time that Uki and Siwon were yelling at each other, Donghae and I kept looking at each other. Never, not once, have we ever gotten into such an intense fight. Usually, whenever we’d get upset with each other, one of us would just leave for a little while and wait ‘till things would cool down, but Uki and Siwon obviously didn’t believe in that method. They were the kind of siblings that yelled it out.

And quite frankly?

It scared the eff outta me.

Finally, Leeteuk, the brave soul that he is, separated the feuding siblings. Big props to him. I never could have mustered enough courage to do such a thing. And, well, the conversation with Uki’s mom was quite funny. Now I see where Uki got her spunk from. Her mom was the exact same! However, the whole room began speculating on this whole ‘Troy’ business after she ran to her room with the phone in a death grip.

“Who’s Troy?” Leeteuk asked.

“I have no idea!” Siwon exclaimed, looking around the room as though looking for an answer from somebody.

“Maybe it’s her boyfriend,” Sungmin said bluntly, getting up and heading to the kitchen to look for something to eat.

“Yah! It better not be! She’s way too young!” Siwon exclaimed again.

“Young? She’s eighteen, nineteen over here. She’s legal over in America,” I interjected.

Siwon death glared. I gulped. Have I ever mentioned how scary his glares were?

“I wouldn’t care if she were 40, she’s still too young!” Siwon said, aggravated.

I tuned him out as Leeteuk and the rest of the members were trying to calm Siwon down. All except for my brother.

“You okay?” I asked him.

Donghae turned his gaze from the floor to my face meekly. “Mmm?…Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I’m fine…”

Then he looked as if he zoned out on me again. I cleared my throat. “Donghae, if you don’t mind me asking…What did happen between you and her?”

“Her?” he asked, looking at me. “Her who? There is no her.” He laughed feebly.

“I’m talking about Uki, Donghae. What happened between you and Uki.”

“Uki? Pfsht. Nothing happened between me and Uki. That’d be crazy, right? She’s way too young for me.”

“Not particularly. You and her are the same age difference as me and Hangeng are.”

At the mention of his name, Donghae momentarily glared at me. Then he sighed. “Basically, the same thing that happened between you and Hangeng happened between me and Uki. Except…It was a little more intense I suppose.”

“You mean…You guys…?”

He looked up at me, an ashamed look on his face. “No, not necessarily, but we got really close a couple times.”

I averted my gaze to the floor, slightly in shock. My brother? My brother of all people almost had…IT with UKI?! But…But…She DESPISES him. Wteff?!

“I know you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all this,” Donghae said, interrupting my mental babble, “but it’s because I wanted to make sure you knew that you can always tell me anything. No matter what it is.”

I slightly nodded to let him know that I was still tuned in. Then we all went quiet as we heard Uki yell, “EXCUSE ME?! THIS IS HOW YOU’RE GONNA TREAT ME?! I GAVE YOU TWO AND A HALF YEARS OF MY LIFE, AND THIS IS HOW YOU’RE GONNA TREAT ME?!”