Why does my mouth taste gross? Ugh! My head hurts. Why do I feel like crap?I sat up despite the pounding in my brain and look around. I remembered coming home with TOP, but I couldn’t recall for the life of me what had happened after that, let alone how I’d gotten in my bed. Trying to remember just made my head hurt worse, so I went back to sleep.

            “Leah? Leah, get up.”

            Groggily, I opened my eyes, offended by the light I was assaulted with. After a moment, my eyes started to adjust and I recognized Dakota as the one who’d woken me up.

            “I feel like death,” I said.

            “You look like it too.”

            “Well thanks. That was nice.” I sat up again. I hated the look Dakota gave me as I winced at the pain my head. Something was telling me that I’d done something incredibly stupid last night.        

            “I don’t ever want to drink again,” I said.

            “Don’t worry. I won’t let you.”

            “Ahh…so I did do something stupid last night.”

            “Kind of…”

            “Be straight with me Kota. What’s the damage?”

            “I’d rather not say but…” The more she talked, the sicker I felt. There’s no way I really said all those things. I couldn’t have! I know better. When she got to the part about Daesung, I knew I would never leave my room again.

            “I said WHAT?! You’re lying. You have to be lying.”

            “I’m sorry Leah, but you really did say that.”

            “I’m never facing any of them again.”

            “That’s not going to work,” Dakota said. “JiYong, you know how he stresses and you’ve majorly worried him. Panda and Youngbae are practically depressed. TOP won’t even watch his dirty shows. Daesung…well, nobody’s heard from or seen him since your confession.”

            “Oh great,” I said. “President Yang is going to kill me.”

            “He hasn’t said anything yet, which means he doesn’t know, otherwise he would have called,” Dakota said.

            “I guess that’s the only good thing about this whole mess.”

            “Here,” Dakota said, handing me something. I took it without thinking. “It’s a peppermint stick," she explained. “ on it will help with your hangover and the taste in your mouth.”

            “Thanks Kota. And I’m sorry.”

            “Sorry for what? I should be apologizing for using you.”

            “Using me? What are you talking about?”    

            “After TOP brought you up here, he felt really bad about letting you drink so much so I had to comfort him. His bed is really soft.”

            “Excuse me?”

            “Well, we decided that it wasn’t really the best idea for me to come in here with you all jacked up, and we were both really worried about you, so I slept with TOP…for moral support of course.”

            “How did that work out?” The peppermint was actually helping. “He sleeps under half a dozen blankets and that’s not your style.”

            “We made it work,” she said cryptically.

            “Well I’m glad someone benefitted from the foolishness,” I said.

            “It’ll be alright, I promise.”

            “How can you say that Dakota? Mi Cha won. She won the moment Daesung got on the plane with her and she didn’t have to do a damn thing! She won. She has Daesung. And Panda…he should hate me. And if he doesn’t then he should. I don’t know why I couldn’t just let myself love him. Everyone else here thinks I’m an emotional wreck and who knows what else. How can it possibly be okay?” I put my hands in my hair and tried not to pull my hair out. “I didn’t used to be like this!”

            “Panda doesn’t hate you.”

            “He should!” I said bitterly. “He’s always been there for me and I used him. How am I supposed to be able to face him knowing that the whole time I was trying to be happy with him I was wishing he was Dae? I didn’t come here for this! I should just go home.” I was hysterically crying, clutching my chest and rocking back and forth in the bed. “Nothing is going to be alright and everything has changed. There’s no way to go back now.”

            “I’ve never seen you like this Leah. I don’t know how to handle this.”

            “Neither do I.”