Panda called me whenever he could, but it still wasn’t enough. What I really wanted was him and I was starting fall back into my depression. Everyone’s excitement over the baby was really making everything worse, and I took to hiding out in my room at my mom’s house to avoid my friends at school. It was a week until Winter Break and everyone felt as though Dakota’s and mine’s apartment was the library. It wasn’t that I didn’t mind helping my friends, but they shouldn’t have waited to the last minute to study.

The only bad thing about staying at my mom’s was that my aunt was almost always there. She was constantly trying to get me to pick out a color for Hana’s room, or choose which games I wanted to play at the baby shower, or anything other than leave me alone. It also didn’t help that whoever was moving in next door had dogs. I don’t know what was wrong with those mutts, but the two of them always started barking at the oddest hours. The strangest thing about them was, they made all that noise, but I never actually saw them.

I was watching some movie on FX when someone knocked on the door. I was home alone and I’d just gotten comfortable, so if it was anyone trying to sell me something, they were going to get cursed out. I got up and opened the door and was surprised by an older Asian woman standing in the door way.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“My name is Ahn Sun Young,” she said. “I’m your neighbor. I wanted to apologize for the dogs.”

Ahn? That’s a Korean name I thought. “It’s okay imo,” I said. “They don’t bother me too much.”

“Oh! You know Korean?” she asked excitedly.

“Yes ma’am. I just came back from Seoul a little while ago. Why don’t you come in?”

Sun Young came in and we sat at the table in the kitchen. We chatted for almost an hour about different sights and people in Seoul. She seemed pretty interested when I told her about staying with Big Bang. After a while, she insisted that she had to leave so I walked her to the door.

“Ah yes, before I forget…my nephews will be coming here soon. They’re the dearest boys. You should come meet them when they get here.” She gestured to my belly. “They can be her oppas until you give her real ones.”

“Kamsahaeyo,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll like that.”

I went back inside to watch Looney Tunes and ended up drifting off to sleep. I was rudely awoken by Dakota, who was talking about me under her breath.

“I can hear you, you know.”

“I wasn’t hiding,” she said. “Get up! You do know you have a baby shower in like half an hour, right?”

I groaned. “Do I have to? I’m not in the mood.”

“Have you talked to SeungRi today?”

“No,” I pouted. “But the lady next door is Korean! She came over today and we talked for a little while. She was really nice.”

“That’s fine,” Dakota said. “But you have to get ready.”

“Get ready? You act like we’re going somewhere other than the living room. I just need to run a comb through my head and I’ll be done.”

“I see one flaw with your plan,” Dakota said. She whipped out a yellow bag and pulled a dress out of it. “Your aunt bought you this.”

I groaned. I’m twenty years old, dammit, why can’t I dress myself? “Do I have to?” I repeated.

“Stop acting like that. This is supposed to be fun, remember?”

“Yeah yeah…”

The baby shower wasn’t actually that bad. I wasn’t aware that I had that many people who cared about me, although there were a couple faces that I didn’t recognize. Out of all people, it was my younger cousins that won all the games. The women who actually had babies couldn’t even identify the baby food. I found it all slightly amusing until my belly started to ache halfway through. Hana got a ton of clothes, and diapers, and cute little baby things that I was really grateful for. Auntie Carla made a list of everything I got and I was pretty sure she and Dakota were going to have a ball the next day sorting out everything.

Finally it was all over and everyone was gone except Aunt Carla, Nijah, and Dakota. The two of us were practically staying with my mom now, especially since school was finally out. I was staying because I didn’t want to deal with the stairs to get to our second floor apartment. As for Dakota…well, she had issues being alone, plus I think she was scared she was going to miss something so she wanted to stay close. Either way, I was kind of glad to have her around. One night I was laying in bed, trying to get comfortable when Super Mario Bros started playing again. I answered the phone quickly, not wanting to wake up anyone since it was kind of late.

“Hey Leah.”

“Hey Panda. What’s up?”

“I have some bad news.”

I started to get really nervous when he said that. “What is it?” I asked.

“We’re going off to do promotions. I won’t be able to call you as often.”

It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought, but my heart still sank. “I understand. You have to work, it’s okay.”

“You sound so disappointed.”

“I am, but I’ll get over it. I just need to find some kind of distraction.”

“I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” Panda said.

“I’ll hold you to that, but don’t worry about it. I’ll just spend some time with my aunt, or maybe I’ll visit the imo next door.”

“See, you’ll be fine.”

“I won’t be fine until I see you again.” I was aware of the fact that I sounded like some kind of harlequin romance or something, but it was true.

“I’ll be there before you know it,” he assured me. “By the way, have you talked to your appa?”

“Why is everyone so keen on me telling him? No, I haven’t spoken to him since I got home.”

“You should talk to him,” Panda said seriously. “I want to meet him before Hana is born.”

“I really don’t want to tell him. I just know it’s not going to go well.”

“Do it…for me?”

I hated when he used that tone on me. He knew I couldn’t say no. “Fine. I’ll call him, for your sake.”

“Thanks babe.”

Babe? What movies has he been watching? “I’m going to bed. Call me when you get a chance.”

“Of course. Saranghaeyo.”

“I love you too.”

Like I promised Panda, I called my dad. I still didn’t tell him everything, only that he should book a plane ticket because I wanted him to meet some people that were very close to me. He was suspicious and kept asking a bunch of questions, but I continued to be vague. I refused to tell him. Panda wasn’t particularly happy about how I’d handle the situation, but all he said was to call the man, so that’s what I did.

Time seemed to alternate between going too fast and not going fast enough. There were days at a time that I went without hearing from Panda. I took to searching the internet to find where the boys were, but for some reason, I couldn’t find anything. It was as if all the VIPs in the world were personally withholding information from me. Even the YG homepage didn’t have anything for me, which was starting to worry me. However, with there only being two months left before my life changed, I was frantically trying to get myself prepared.

The imo next door was really helpful. Whenever I needed to escape from my aunt or Dakota, she let come over. She kept the dogs locked up since she knew about my fear of them. She let me talk about nothing at all or plan Panda’s death when I didn’t hear from him in a while without judgment or saying anything back. I think I was amusing to her to say the least.

“Imo, when are your nephews coming?” I asked one day.

“Oh, I heard from them yesterday. It should be about a week or so,” she answered.

“Good,” I said. “Hana’s getting restless.” As if to prove my point, she squirmed around.

“That’s a good sign.”