A/N: sorry about the random change in formatting. i don't know what's going on and i kind of don't want to go through and change it 

Daesung’s letter surprised and confused me. There was the thought of what if I gave up on him too early? But rereading it, I realized that I’d made the right decision. Like he’d said himself, Dae wouldn’t have been able to make me as happy as SeungRi had.

There was a sense of closure as I refolded the letter and put it safely in my bag. I sat back with my music and slipped into some form of unconsciousness that wasn’t quite sleep. You know, that state where you’re hyperaware of everything going on, but you can’t really respond.

I must have fallen asleep because Dakota was shaking me awake. I looked around, confused, as the other passengers stirred around me. Some people were in the aisle getting their luggage from the overhead compartments.

“Are you seriously telling me that I slept for thirteen hours straight?”

Dakota nodded. “If you weren’t already pregnant, I’d have some idea as to why you’re so worn out,” she said with a smirk.

“Then what’s your excuse?” I asked. “As soon as we got in the air you were knocked the hell out.”

“Oh that? I stayed up with TOP all night. Or rather, TOP stayed up all night.”

I coughed in surprise. “Uh, no! No ma’am. That is against the rules! Don’t talk about TOP like that! I’d rather not think of him that way.”

“But who else am I gonna tell?”

“Tell your diary,” I shot back. “Tell your teddy bear, tell your pillow, hell tell your TV, just don’t tell me!”

“Leah, you’re such a prude,” Kota said.

“Whatever,” I answered back. I got up to grab my stuff when I thought of something. “It’s not the same to pick at each other without someone to referee us. I miss JiYong!”

Dakota turned to me as we waited for other passengers to get off the plane. “I was just thinking the same thing. I think it’s going to be harder getting used to home than it was getting used to Korea.”

I nodded my agreement as we finally disembarked and headed to baggage claim. Half an hour later, we were riding through Atlanta to Dakota’s house where we were staying for the night before heading back to our apartment on campus five hours away.

“I wonder what the boys are doing,” I said aloud as Dakota drove the rental car down a busy road. I didn’t want to dwell on the guys, but it distracted me from trying to apply invisible brakes.

“What time is it over there?”

I glance at my watch. “It’s almost eleven o’clock at night.”

“TOP’s starting his first bottle of wine,” she said instantly.

“JiYong’s locked in his room working on something, meaning that Youngbae is reading a comic book on the couch,” I said with a smile.

“That boy and Marvel comics…” Dakota said, shaking her head. “He’s worst that I am about his characters.”

“You didn’t watch X Men with him. The boy needs a girlfriend.”

“True. So what are Dae and SeungRi up to?”

I thought for a moment. “If he’s not sulking, Panda’s getting his kicked by Dae in cards.”

“As much as he plays cards, he shouldn’t as badly as he does.”

“Be nice Kota.”

Dakota turned into the driveway of a pretty, two story house. As we got out the car, her mom came out the door. I hung back for a little as they reunited, and felt a little jealous that I had to wait another day before I could see my mom.

“I’m glad you girls had a safe trip,” she said.

“To be honest Mrs. Kim, we wouldn’t know if it was safe or not. We kind of slept the whole way back.”

“You better take what rest you can get,” she replied, looking at my stomach. “You won’t be getting much of that pretty soon.”

“That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”

“Well come on inside. There’s no reason for us to be outside talking.”

We grabbed our stuff from out the trunk and went into the house. I followed Dakota and her mom upstairs to the guest room. I set my bag down, then went back downstairs to find Dakota and her mom in the kitchen. Dakota’s mom decorates cakes in her spare time and was working on a pink and black topsy turvy cake. I saw Dakota looking entirely too happy and I recognized that the cake was her two favorite colors.

“Look what mommy made us,” she said. “And guess what kind of cake it is.”

“I don’t know, tell me.”

“Chocolate! TOP would love it.”

“You mention this TOP boy a lot. Who is he?”

“He’s just one of the guys mom…” Dakota said.

“Stop playin Kota,” I said. “You know that’s your man.”

“Leah!”

“What? I’m right. TOP means as much to you as Panda does to me. Why are you acting like that?”

“It’s not that serious.”

“It must be serious if you don’t want to tell me about it,” her mom said. “But what can I do? I’m just the mother after all. I can’t make you talk about him if you don’t want to.”

“Fine, I’ll tell you. What do you want to know?” Dakota relented.

“How did you end up with this boy?”

“He’s not a boy mom. He’s like 25. And I don’t know, it just kind of happened. I mean, we were all just friends, but I think things changed when he got sick soon after we got there. Leah wouldn’t go near him because she always gets sick if someone else is, so I took care of him. After that, I was just closer to him than anybody else in the house and it kind of went from there.”

He was also the one who introduced her to Korean alcohol and I’m sure they got to know each other real well over a couple bottles of soju I thought. Dakota would kill me if she knew what I was thinking, so I shook my head to clear it of thoughts.

“That cake looks too pretty to eat,” I commented.

“Don’t worry about that. It’s cake!”

“Wow you really do sound like TOP.”

“Whatever.”

“Tell me more about your stay. I know I talked to Dakota almost every day, but I know there are some things you haven’t told me,” Mrs. Kim said.

“That’s not the best thing to say. It’s easier to ask what you want to know instead of trying to tell you about a year’s worth of foolishness,” Dakota said.

“Tell me more about those boys you were staying with. What are their names again?”

“TOP, JiYong, Youngbae, Daesung, and Panda,” Dakota answered.

“TOP…and Panda? Those are their names?”

I laughed. “TOP and Panda are both named Seung Hyun, which is still hard to say despite our extensive Korean lessons. So we call big Seung Hyun by his stage name, TOP, and little Seung Hyun is called SeungRi or Panda.”

“Panda is the one you belong to, right?” she asked. Belong to? “Dakota said you had a pretty ring. Can I see it?”

I showed her my left hand, where I was actually wearing the ring instead of on the chain like I’d been doing before.

“Oh, it really is pretty.”

“Thank you.”

We chatted some more with Dakota’s mom until her dad came home and greeted us. He saw the three of us in the kitchen with the cake and immediately retreated upstairs. He wanted to know about our stay too, but he could almost sense that there was girl talk going on and he wanted no part of it. I found it kind of funny that Dakota’s brother came home and did the exact same thing as her dad. If I could have escaped then I would have, since Kota was planning my wedding again, but there was no way to escape and no TOP to distract her. I wonder if Panda’s up… I thought. I reached in my pocket to text him and at least let him know we made it home safely while Dakota prattled on about flower arrangements.

Finally, the men came downstairs and we went to Friday’s for dinner. We recounted a lot of the stories we’d told earlier to Dakota’s dad and brother, omitting details like the truth or dare game before we left, Lee Mi Cha, or anything related to drinking, which left more to talk about than you would think. Dakota’s dad seemed to think that President Yang’s office might be worth a visit, just to see the figurines, but since we’d both been there enough times, usually for something bad, we convinced him that it wasn’t worth it. Dakota mentioned briefly her romance with TOP, which caused her father to raise an eyebrow but he didn’t comment.

“So Leah, you went to Korea for school and came back with a man and a child. I think you were born in the wrong decade,” Kota’s brother, Lucas said.

“It’s not like I did this on purpose,” I defended.

“Don’t listen to him,” Dakota said. “He’s being an for no reason,” she added.

“It’s okay. I don’t really care,” I replied.

“I know you haven’t been home long, but you do have to speak English here,” Dakota’s mom said. It was then that I realized that the second half of that conversation had somehow ended up in Korean.

“Sorry…” we both muttered.

After dinner we went back to the house and ate cake. I had a flashback of the time I made TOP a chocolate cake for waking up early and I couldn’t help but smile as I ate my slice. Halfway through my treat my leg started cramping up and I couldn’t finish enjoying it. Mrs. Kim and Dakota seemed concerned, but it had been happening a lot recently and I wasn’t really worried about it. I stood up and stretched, deciding to go ahead to bed and try to get comfortable enough to sleep.

I went upstairs and got ready for bed and checked my phone again. I still hadn’t gotten word from Panda from earlier and I had to force myself not to worry. I mean, there was the time change to consider, but still…it would have been nice to hear from him. I went to say goodnight to Dakota and her parents, then got into bed and even though I slept the whole plane ride, I immediately fell asleep.