*SIWON'S POV*

“Maddie, we’re going to dinner, let’s go…”

I said as I walked in to Maddie’s hotel room, completely sure that she was the only one there, but to my surprise, Eunhyuk was the one who responded to me first. He was sitting on the sofa beside the bed, supporting his legs on its edge and watching some random TV show with a very low volume. When I came in, he looked at me and put his index finger on his lips, making a shushing gesture and pointed at Maddie who was curled up child-like on the bed, sleeping peacefully. Although I was still kinda surprised to find them here alone and half-thought of leaving altogether, I ended up taking a seat on the other small sofa beside Eunhyuk.

“Has she had anything to eat at all?”

“Other than lunch, no. But I guess sleep is what she needs right now, seeing as she’s been having trouble sleeping lately. I’ll wake her up when she absolutely has to have dinner.”

Even though Eunhyuk’s tone of voice was so nonchalant when he said that but I couldn’t help but catch that bit of affection in it, which as of lately was a common thing to hear in his voice every time he talked about Maddie. Ever since the ‘moment’ that they both shared that time awhile back before the show, which I happen to witness, they were just plain inseparable. By now, everybody knows that when you wanna know where Eunhyuk is, you just need to ask Maddie and vice versa, and they always magically have the answer for it. Also, seeing them go anywhere together was pretty much a common sight now. And remember that weird feeling that I get every time I saw them together? Yeah, it didn’t go away at all and just became even stranger by the amount of time that Eunhyuk and Maddie are spending together now. And please do hate me for saying this but ever since their closeness intensifies, I have a really bad feeling of… I don’t know, like I was being replaced. Maddie always came to me for every little thing and I do the same thing to her and this is the way things are going for the whole 16 years that we were friends but lately I was always the last to know. It was almost like, well… Eunhyuk came between Maddie and I. God, I already feel like a complete for even having that thought crossed my mind, but honestly, I couldn’t help it.

“You really care about her, don’t you?”

That question was on the tip of my tongue for days and days now and I don’t know why I delayed on saying it until now. Eunhyuk didn’t immediately answer, though. He glanced at Maddie’s sleeping form and a small smile played on his face.

“Yeah, I do. Although I never thought that it would be this much, to the point where I’ll pretty much fight off anything that would hurt her.”

Well, he wasn’t the only one surprised at that. I was probably even more surprised by tenfold at his answer. Yeah, I know they were smitten over each other but to hear that kind of thing coming from Eunhyuk was a whole different thing.

“Um… Siwon, if things were to… happen with Alice and I, it wouldn’t be weird or anything, right? Cause she’s your best friend and everything?”

Honestly, the first thing that came to my mind was ‘are you saying you’re gonna be dating my best friend? Damn straight it would be weird!’ But how can I say that to one of my best friends and band mate too?  I’ve known and became friends with Eunhyuk way back when we were just trainees at our entertainment management company and I know that he’s a really good guy too and truth be told, I’d feel really safe to leave Maddie with a guy like him. But this is just too weird! Maybe if Maddie wasn’t my best friend and Eunhyuk wasn’t my band mate I wouldn’t make a big deal out of this but… both of them are really close to me. What should I say to this?

“Of course not. Eunhyuk-ah, if she’s happy then I’d be happy too.”

A look of relief washed over Eunhyuk’s face when I said that, and that’s when I know I’ve came up with the right answer. Right answer, even though it wasn’t the one I initially had in mind.

“So when are you gonna tell her how you feel?”

“I won’t.”

“What do you mean you won’t?”

“She’s not dense, Siwon, I’m pretty sure she already knows. If the way I’ve been treating her is anything to go by, I think she already knows for quite some time now. That and the fact that Hae must’ve somewhat tipped her off about this, that nosy dude.”

We both laughed lightly at that, knowing that Eunhyuk was pretty much right. Donghae’s never really the one who knows how to keep his mouth shut, especially when it comes to people that he cared about. And we all know how tight Eunhyuk and Donghae is.

“Then what are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna wait. I’ve asked her to go out with me once and she said no, I just have a feeling that if I tried that again, she’d end up running away from me. I want her to be mine but I want her to realize that she wanted that too. If I know her as well as I think I do, she’s not the one to be tied down. So I’m just gonna let her make her own decision.”

He couldn’t have spoken those words better; he couldn’t have described Maddie better. He’s the one that Maddie should be with. Why is it so hard for me to admit that?

“What are you two doing?”

I guess both Eunhyuk and I were so engrossed in our conversation that we didn’t realize the object of said conversation itself had woken up. Maddie had sat up on the bed and was still looking a little groggy from sleep, but that unmistakable glint of excitement was clearly present in her eyes when she realized that Eunhyuk was there. I instinctively looked at Eunhyuk and immediately feeling like I shouldn’t even be there. He was giving her a look that was identical to the one in her eyes, still with that small smile playing on his lips, probably from realizing that she was excited to see him. It was like they were practically lost in their own world.

“Contemplating on what to use to wake you up. Siwon and I were thinking either a bucket of water or calling Shindong hyung for some body slam.”

“Nate, please tell me this dude is just in around or else I’m gonna do some serious damage to his body parts that his nickname won’t be ‘dancing machine’ anymore.”

Both Eunhyuk and I could just laugh at that. Seriously, Maddie could come up with the most outrageous empty threats sometimes. Why empty? Cause I know that Maddie actually cared for each and every one of us, probably more than what she’s letting out. Once again, my laughter quickly died out when Eunhyuk stood up from the couch and sat beside Maddie on the bed, the affectionate look that he was giving her still lingered. He tucked some of the loose hairs on the side of her face behind her ear and to my surprise, she didn’t even flinch or blush when he did that and looked like she was already used to that. Weirdness level on an all-time high right now, seriously.

“You wanna go back to sleep or you wanna head out for dinner?”

“I’m kinda hungry so I guess dinner would rock. You’re coming too, right?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m just gonna go back to my room for a bit and change then I’ll pick you up here, okay? Go get ready.”

Eunhyuk rested his palm on Maddie’s shoulder and gave her a slight nudge and she just nodded her head and stood up from the bed, disappearing inside the bathroom, no doubt to get changed. Whereas I found myself holding my breath and listened intently to their conversation and was suddenly captivated by how tender Eunhyuk’s tone of voice was when he spoke to Maddie. And it was also quite surprising to hear that slight demand in her voice when she asked whether Eunhyuk was coming or not, it was like saying that she wouldn’t go out if he didn’t go with her, which then led to Eunhyuk detailing everything that he’s gonna do to ensure her that he was gonna be there. Seriously, have their relationship really had gone to that level of dependency? God, I don’t think I’m quite ready for all of this, this is just too much to take in right now.

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*DONGHAE’S POV*

“Holy , I’m gonna KILL you Lee!”

“Not if I kill you first, buster! Haha, eat that!”

“ no, no, no! Kill, kill, kiiiiillllll!!”

“Would you quit cursing?!”

“I ing can’t! Not ing now!”

“You’re bringing bad omen into this… aargghhh !”

Then Alice just blew up laughing. Well, look at that, I finally said ‘’ even after I protested at Alice that she said it too much. Aish, I’ve been hanging out with this girl too much, my mouth started to become as dirty as hers. I threw my joystick down angrily as my character died, glaring at Alice as she practically keeled over from laughing so much. And yes people, you can relax now, Alice and I weren’t really killing each other, we were just playing Transformers on Kyuhyun’s Nintendo Wii as we just finished a bunch of press junket and have nothing to do until the show tomorrow. Although judging by how much Alice was laughing at me, I was seriously contemplating on committing the killings in real life, the victim being Alice. But then again, who am I kidding? Once I was done murdering Alice I’d surely be dead in the hands of my own best friend, Hyukjae. Yeah, that’s how much Alice means to him now. I’m seriously surprised that what started out as just a small crush that lasted for a couple years and me messing around trying to fix both of them up had actually turned into this whole thing that everybody can see happening. If the situation was at all possible, Hyukjae never leaves anywhere without Alice and it looked like she was just as dependant on him as he was on her. I guess the only times that Hyukjae spent without Alice is when we’re on stage, taking a shower and sleep. Other than that, you’ll most likely find them within not even one foot from each other, might as well just join them by the hips, if you ask me. But the weird thing is that even by the amount of time that they spent together, they seemed to manage to keep it platonic, which even surprised me, Hyukjae’s best friend. I know him and I know that each time he liked a girl, he’ll most likely just go for it not really caring about anything else. But with Alice, it’s like… he was more deliberate, he kept on giving her all the attention he could possibly manage and somehow didn’t ask anything in return and just waited for her reaction. And what was even more appalling was that the two of them, I don’t know whether they were agreeing on it or not, didn’t speak ONE WORD to anyone about what their relationship really is, leaving us all in the dark playing the ‘are they or aren’t they’ game. These two honestly had become the hot topic in our little clique. I mean surely, being Hyukjae’s best friend and everything he at least would tell me stuff like this, right? But nooo, every time I asked him about Alice he just grinned and refused to talk about it. Aish, some best friend he is.

“God, I can’t wait to tell everybody about this. The holy Aiden Lee finally said the magical four-letter word, and I don’t mean the ones that spelled ‘love’.”

Alice said that as she was wiping tears of mirth from her face. Aish, this girl, how can she laugh that hard that she was practically in tears without cracking a rib, or something? I just glared at her once again before pretending that I was about to throw the joystick at her, making her ran away and plopped herself on the nearest couch, cackling loudly.

“Ha-ha-ha, go and tell everybody that, they’ll most likely blame it on you for the bad influence anyway seeing as you got a mouth of a truck driver.”

“Hey!”

“Seriously, buster, you’re gonna try and protest on that?”

That mischievous grin appeared on Alice’s face again, making her look like an overgrown five-year-old, seriously. She was about to open to say something, but was quickly distracted when her Blackberry rang. She picked up the call and I just continued to focus back on the TV screen, picking another character for the game and could only hear Alice’s side of the conversation she was having.

“Hey… Nah, I’m just playing on Kyu’s Wii with Lee… Hahaha, yeah, apparently we’re that dull... Oh really? So, what time are you gonna be back?”

I couldn’t help but to overhear her conversation. I mean, I was in the same room after all, so it can’t be counted as eavesdropping, right? And judging by how Alice’s voice dramatically softened when she asked that, I was absolutely positive that it was Hyukjae on the line. He was still out with his manager doing some individual appearances while the rest of us went back to the hotel. This is probably Hyukjae’s personal record, 3 hours away from Alice and he already felt the need to call her! And another thing, man, the way she talked to him! It was like hearing my baby sister talking to her first boyfriend, or something. I subconsciously stopped paying attention to the TV and basically listened to the whole conversation, couldn’t really help myself from grinning at those two. They’d make such a sickeningly cute couple if and when they decided to drop the act and just confessed each other’s feelings, which I’m not sure will happen anytime soon cause with the rate they’re going, hell will most likely start to freeze over before they decided to make it official. A few minutes later, Alice was finally done with the call and she sat back beside me, picking up her joystick and began shifting through the characters in the game, acting like nothing happened. I stared at her incredulously, not quite believing how she could just act like that. Then she must’ve realized I was looking at her and turned her head towards me with an innocent look on her face and I merely kept staring at her, silently demanding for her to at least say anything. I think she finally got what I meant as she put down the joystick, rolling her eyes towards me before saying,

“Okay fine, ask away.”

“Good lord, finally! Some answers for your faithful children, Lord!”

Alice was looking at me like as if I had grown another head when I said that. Well, I gotta admit though, rising both my fists in the air and nearly screamed was a bit overstretching it, but what can I say, things are finally starting to get interesting now that Alice is willing to say something.

“Lee, I’m starting to seriously reconsider being friends with you guys after that, you know?”

“Meh, I know you’ll still love us anyway. Okay, I wanna ask about a bunch of things but I wanna make it interesting, we’ll be doing 10 questions in 30 seconds again.”

“What the ? Can’t you, like, ask it like someone NORMAL would? Like, ‘so Alice, how are things going, is life being good to you?’ Like that!”

“Psh, where’s the fun in that? Okay, we’re starting now.”

“Ugh, okay, fine you stubborn fish!”

“Are you and Hyukjae an item?”

“No.”

“Then why are you guys ridiculously close?”

“He treats me really good.”

“You do know he’s still crushing on you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So you also know that I think you’re starting to fall for him too?”

“Yeah.”

“Am I right?”

“Almost.”

“Why almost?”

“I’m still not sure about some things.”

“What things?”

“Too complicated to say.”

“But you do like him?”

“I do.”

“Do you ever think that he’s probably gonna get the wrong idea when you’re so welcoming of him and seemed like you’re really depending on him?”

“I don’t think so, he knows me.”

“Are you and Siwon drifting apart because you don’t necessarily get along with Tiffany?”

“Yeah.”

As soon as she answered that last question, she gasped and quickly covered . I knew I caught her off guard with that question but that’s what I was also aiming at. I was gonna tackle two issues at the same time, about her and Hyukjae and also her and Siwon, that was my intention from the beginning. I noticed that she and Siwon had slowly drifted apart this past couple weeks and I also noticed that it happened around the time when SNSD joined us for this tour so I kind of just… put two and two together. Other than Hyukjae, I probably am the closest to Siwon, and eventually Alice so I know pretty well what kind of relationship he has with her. They’re pretty much soul mates, like a brother and a sister only not related by blood. They knew exactly who each of them are and already has a million different ways to deal with it, the kinda friendship that the whole world will be jealous of. In a way, I did this because I cared about both of them. Maybe you’d say that I was a little bit interfering with other people’s business, but Siwon and Alice aren’t just other people, they’re my good friends.

“I thought… you were just gonna talk about Silver.”

Alice said with a little stammer in her voice, obviously still really surprised at what I asked her.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you that but I figured that you won’t give me straight answers if I just laid it out in the open and thought of a… let’s just say more creative way to get you to talk.”

I grinned at her and she then broke into a small smile and punched my arm playfully.

“Sneaky fish.”

“So I’ve been told. So… to get to the bottom of things, what’s the problem with you and Tiffany?”

“I don’t know, she just seemed to… dislike me from the get-go and I don’t even know why.”

“Ah yeah, that. I kinda overheard her and the girls talking some stuff about you and… well, they’re not actually saying good things.”

To this, Alice only smiled. But it’s not one of those smiles that you’d normally see on her face, this was that kind of bitter smile. This made me feel even more uneasy about telling her that. I actually heard about the girls talking about her, saying that she’s some sort of a loser and a lot of other things that I really didn’t have the heart to say. I never planned on telling Alice about this cause I really didn’t wanna hurt her and thought that it’s best that she didn’t know but I guess… judging by that smile, she kinda figured it out herself.

“I know that, Lee. Even though of course they were speaking in Korean and I didn’t have any idea what they were talking about but I think… I’m not that dumb that I don’t realize they were talking about me.”

“Does Siwon even know about this?”

“I don’t think he knows exactly what’s going on but… I just hoped to god that it doesn’t bother him. And don’t even think about asking me to tell him about this cause I most probably won’t. Being with Tiffany makes him happy and I’d rather see him like that, even if it means I have to back off for a little bit, I’ll just have to deal with that.”

Hearing her say that made me realize that it was final. And I get the message that she didn’t wanna talk about it anymore. Kinda heart-breaking to hear her answer that, though.

*ALICE’S POV*

I felt so bad for sorta kinda lying to Lee about the whole thing that happened with Tiffany, especially after noticing that he cared about me enough to want to know about me and Nate. But I can’t possibly tell him everything without letting him know that I’m in love with Nate in the process. No one can know for now and I’d like to keep it that way because I honestly think it will do more damage than good if anybody found out about how I feel for Nate. I’m so sorry, Lee.

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I was seriously tortured by exams and assigments that I didn't even have the time to post this, but now I do... Yay! :) I still have a few days of exam ahead so updates might be slower... Anyways, hope everyone is still enjoying the story... :) Oh and if you guys read, comment or subscribe, that will seriously cheer me up... Love you all... =]