I woke up the next morning feeling like I was forgetting something important. Since the concert was off, the boys had a lot of free time meaning that they had no reason to get up and neither did I. Still, I was up and filled with a nervous energy, so I crept from the room as quietly as possible to avoid waking up Dakota. I was sitting curled up in my favorite spot on the couch, reading a book, when Daesung came down the stairs with his luggage.

            “Leaving without saying goodbye?” I asked. I must have startled him because he jumped.

            “Maknae, you scared me.” He paused. “But yes, I’m leaving.”

            “Why so early? And without waking us up?”

            “Ha! Wake up TOP and JiYong for a ten minute goodbye? I know better than that.” He laughed. “I didn’t want to wake you up either.  I didn’t want to upset you,” he added quietly.

            “Upset me?” I asked.

            “You seemed really hurt last night when I said I was leaving.”

            “Of course I was,” I said. “I’m going to miss you oppa.”

            “I’m the only one you still call that.”

            “Well I guess that makes us even since you don’t use my given name either,” I said.

            “Don’t make JiYong worry, okay?” He said as he started out the door. “And I’ll miss you too Leah.”

            “Goodbye Daesung,” I said, closing the door behind me. I could feel my heart starting to freeze over, and I didn’t want that to happen. I made my way up the stairs to the room Panda now had to himself. When I went inside he wasn’t there, so I just laid down in his bed. A few minutes passed and he came back with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. He did a double take when he saw me, but didn’t seem to think too much of it.

            “Daesung left,” he said.

            “I know.” I watched him walk around in a circle awkwardly like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. “What are you doing? Sit down.”

            Like a puppy, Panda immediately sat down on the bed. He was still nervous and twitchy, and he wouldn’t look at me.

            “What is with you?”

            “I’m trying to figure out what to do. I’ve never been in this situation.”       

            “Situation?”

            “It’s nothing. Are you okay?”

            “No,” I said truthfully.

            “Don’t cry, please. I’ve seen you cry too many times recently and I didn’t think that was possible before. I don’t know what I’d do if you cried again.”

            “Aww…Panda, I didn’t know you cared that much.”

            “Of course I care,” he said.

            “I’m going to be okay Panda. I’m just going to need some help.”

            “You know I’ll do anything I can to help.”

            I was hoping he would say that. “Anything?”

            “For you? Yes.”

            I got up and locked the door before coming back to the bed and sitting next to Panda. This close, he smelled like soap and something I can only describe as ‘boy’. I ignored the voice in the back of my head that was telling me this was a bad idea and tried to control the numbness that was spreading from the cracks in my heart that had formed when Daesung left.

            “Kiss me,” I said simply.

            Panda obeyed readily. He cradled my face gently and I could feel the tears well up in my eyes as I tangled my fingers in his short hair. The kiss deepened and the numbness started to recede. I slid my fingers down to his neck and pulled him closer to me, crushing myself to his bare chest. I had to do this. I had to lose myself in Panda, or I would lose myself to the world. Panda broke away first, both of us panting.

            “Please?” I asked.

            “It shouldn’t be like this,” he said. “I don’t want it to be like this.”

            “What do you mean Panda?”

            “I don’t want to be his replacement, or his place holder, or whatever you want to call it,” he said.

            I looked at Panda. Couldn’t he tell how much I needed this right now? “This is all I can give you right now. You said you would do anything for me to feel better. I need to do this now, or I won’t ever recover.”

            I saw the look in Panda’s eyes and just like that I had another hole in my heart. That’s not right. He’s supposed to be healing me, not hurting me. “Look, I can’t promise you anything more. And I also can’t make you do anything you don’t want to. I should go.” I got up to leave, but he laid a hand on my arm. The movement made the towel fall open and I couldn’t help but stare at his arousal.

            “Because I know you need this, we can do it,” he said.

            “I mean it when I say that I can’t promise anything,” I said. “Actually, I can promise you one thing: you will always be special to me, even if it’s not in the way you want.”

            “Let’s not talk about that,” he said. “In fact, let’s not talk about anything else.” With that, he pushed me gently onto the bed and with another kiss, helped me find my way out of the rabbit hole…

             The Walk of Shame is only shameful if you get caught. Luckily, the rest of the house seemed to be taking great advantage of the time they got to sleep in and I was able to leave Panda’s room an hour or so later without anyone being aware. I grabbed a pair of chill day clothes and took a quick shower before going downstairs to my book again. I was almost finished with it when Youngbae came down to the kitchen looking for something to eat.

            “You’re still the first one up Youngbae,” I said.

            “It’s a habit I guess.” He shrugged. “What are you doing up?”

            “I’ve been up all morning,” I said. “I guess I’m so used to having to wake you guys up that my body doesn’t understand the concept of sleeping in. I was up in time to say goodbye to Daesung oppa.”

            “How was that?”

            “He called me by my name for what I believe is the first time,” I said.

            “You know what I mean.”

            “Why does everyone think I’m going to shatter into a million pieces because Daesung left for two months to a fantastic island in the summer with a pretty actress?”

            “I just worry about you Leah,” Youngbae said. “You’re really like a little sister to me, and once I realized that you have regular girl emotions, I knew one of us was going to hurt you.”

            “You have so little faith in your brothers?”

            “I wouldn’t call it that. But you have a habit of either being really good, or really bad when it comes to handling emotional situations.”

            “Have I ever told you that you know entirely too much?”

            Youngbae smiled at me. “You may have mentioned it before.”

            “Well I’m mentioning it again,” I said. “Oppa, you are right. I’m going to try, for everyone’s sake, not to fall into some weird depression or whatever, but it’s going to be hard. Even if I do have Panda to lean on, I don’t want to count on him too much. Things aren’t quite the same with us and I don’t want to change anything else.”

            “You might have thought about that before you went to see him this morning.”

            “How do you know that?” I said in a fierce whisper. Youngbae’s creepiness was hitting an epic high today.

            He pointed to my neck and I knew exactly what it meant. I put my hand up to my neck and felt around until I found the spot that was radiating heat. As I ran my fingers along it I was a little taken back. Are those bite marks I feel? Damn Panda…

            “Youngbae, I really don’t know what’s going on in the world anymore.”

            “That still makes you better than me. I never knew what was going on in the first place.”

            “Where is this cryptic wisdom coming from Youngbae?”

            “I blame the comic books,” he said, and I laughed like I never had before.