*ALICE'S POV*

“Aish, Alice-noona, Saw V, really?”

“So? It’s cool.”

“But it’s got like, really sadistic scenes.”

“So? Hee wants to see that too.”

“That’s because you and Heechul hyung are just as weird.”

“Yah! I heard that, you magnae!”

“But that’s true, you’re the only two who wanted to watch that.”

Hee and I looked at each other and just shrugged our shoulders, figuring out that maybe Kyu really got a point. We were hanging out in Yesung and Leeteuk’s hotel room and it was one of those rare free nights for the guys. Hee, Kyu, Ryeo, Yesung, Leeteuk, Silver and I wanted to just go out and catch a movie but the process of going itself was halted when, as you can see, Kyu and I were arguing on what movie to watch. Yes, you can say that Saw is a complete and total crap but I can’t help it, I’m addicted to the goriness of the movie, the gorier the better to me. And that kinda didn’t sit well with the guys who wanted to watch the new Die Hard movie instead.

“Aish, decide already, you two are making my head hurt with your bickering.”

Leeteuk said that with a grin on his face, clearly directing his words to Kyu and me. I glared at Kyu, who already had a smug smile on his face when Leeteuk said that cause he knew full well that when Leeteuk wanted anything, I was always the one who couldn’t help but to agree with him. I really can’t help it, the dude’s just as sweet as a kitten. I rolled my eyes at Kyu and he broke into a big grin, realizing that I was well on my way to give up arguing.

“Okay, fine, you pick the movie.”

“Daebak! Die Hard it is, then.”

I threw my back on the head rest on the couch, crossed my arms over my chest and pouted. Damn your sweetness, Leeteuk, and damn my weakness for it, I can’t watch Saw V now because of it. Then I heard Silver, who was sitting beside me on the couch, let out a small giggle no doubt from witnessing the little argument between Kyu and I and said,

“Of ALL the movies in the world, Alice, why should you pick a movie where people’s heads and limbs are chopped off?”

“Well, duh, it’s cool. How often do you get to see that in real life, huh? Never!”

Silver just laughed and shook his head at that, looking like he was pretty amused at the fact that I’m indeed the number 1 fan of super gory movies. For a couple seconds I couldn’t help but to smile at him and enjoyed the sight that I’m seeing right now. I’ve always loved to see him laugh just cause the way it looked really effortless coming out of him. I guess to Silver, laughing is just as easily as breathing, making it really easy to be around him. I think that’s why I found myself getting used to having him close to me, somehow being with him and the way he’s been treating me is what keeps me sane after, well… Nate and I kinda drifted apart. It hurts to even say it but yeah, that’s what’s been happening. I guess after that incident with Tiffany, I subconsciously tried not to come in contact with Nate too often, especially when his girlfriend’s around but… I kinda didn’t understand why Nate also did the same to me. Things are seriously becoming more and more complicated between Nate and I. How did we get like this? I let out a long sigh and just decided that I need to deal with this immediately. I missed my best friend, the man that I love more than anything.

“I’m gonna take a quick shower before we leave. Pick me up on your way out?”

I said to Silver as I stood up from the couch, ready to leave towards my room.

“Do you even have to ask?”

I know that as of lately Silver is the one closest to me, whether it be physically or emotionally but I swear to god, it still brings that involuntary blush to my face every time he did this kinda thing. Today was no exception. I could feel my face slowly heating up as Silver said that with that signature gummy smile of his and unfortunately, the guys saw and heard this. Crap.

“Omo, aren’t they the cutest thing ever? Oh and she’s blushing, aaww.”

Crap, crap, crap! Ryeo, why do you have say that? And of course EVERYBODY is now either laughing or busy whistling at me or in Ryeo’s case, just couldn’t stop saying ‘aaww’. So then I could just grinned sheepishly at that and quickly sprinted out of the room, saving myself the embarrassment cause I surely can feel my cheeks and ears started to blush a violent shade of pink. I walked along the hallway towards my room and quickly pushed the door open cause I remembered that I left the door unlocked, only held by the double lock. But as soon as I walked in, I knew I made a really terrible mistake. Both Nate and Tiffany looked up at me, eyes widened from shock when I walked in. A few seconds previously, Tiffany was straddling Nate on the bed, they were kissing, she was hurriedly ing his dress shirt and well… I guess you could tell what they were going to do. I could feel my heart starting to beat really fast and looked in horror at the number on the door that said 508. My room number was 510, which was the one directly beside it. Oh my in god, what did I just do?

“Oh my god, I’m sorry, I… didn’t mean to… wrong room.”

I somehow managed to stammer those words out before turning on the balls of my feet and quickly left towards my room. I slammed the door shut behind me but I just couldn’t sit still. I kept pacing back and forth; my nerves aren’t calming down after what I saw. I mean, of course, they’re dating, they must be… well, doing it every once in awhile but… oh my god, why does it hurt me so much to even think about them… doing it? Aaaarrgghh this is NOT supposed to happen! Get a in grip, Alice, get a in grip! I didn’t want to cry, I honestly had enough of crying. But how can I stop the pain that’s pulling on my heart? God, I wish I have a way to do that. I didn’t know how long I’ve been pacing like that, and the next thing I know the door bell to my room rang and I quickly open it to find Nate, looking as awkward as ever although properly clothed by now. Oh my god, stop thinking about that, Alice, why are you so masochistic?

“Nate, it was a mistake, I didn’t mean to do that, it’s just that, I walked into your room, thinking it was mine and I didn’t even check the room number and… I’m just… “

I started talking and apologizing to Nate very quickly as soon as he stepped in and he just smiled at that.

“Maddie, it’s okay, it’s not like you did it on purpose, right?”

“Well, of course I didn’t, but still, I’m really sorry…”

“Maddie, seriously, stop it. It’s not your fault.”

He held on to my shoulders softly as he said that, looking straight into my eyes, and my nerves instantly calmed down. No one can do that to me other than Nate.

“Tiffany’s really mad at me now, huh?”

“Well, she’s not really pleased about it, but she’ll live, no biggie.”

Nate said with that dimpled smile on his face as he sat on my bed and I followed suit.

“But I kinda… wanted to talk to you about something else too.”

I sensed this from the beginning, from the moment he stepped in my room. Although I kinda have a feeling what it was that he wanted to talk about, I still kept my mouth shut and just waited for him to talk.

“I heard this from Tiffany and the girls but I would never ever believe them if I haven’t talked to you first. Is it true that… well, you and my girlfriend haven’t necessarily been getting along?”

I really wanted to lie at Nate’s question, I really did. Cause I know that if I answered yes, even though he’d probably do his best to accept it, it’ll still be some sort of a burden to him, that’s just how he is. But then I knew that if I lied, this would be the most unsettling lie that I’d ever tell him. For him to ask me this directly and even said that he’d never believe anyone else before he heard what I have to say and what I gave to him in return is a lie? No, I just can’t do that to him.

“Well, as much as I didn’t want to say this, but that’s kinda true.”

“Why? I mean, why haven’t you guys been getting along?”

“I don’t know, I guess we’re just… different, you know.”

“You and I are different but we get along just fine.”

“That’s a totally different story, Nate. We go a long way back, you’ve been my best friend since I was 7 years old, I just met Tiffany not even a month ago.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. It’s just that… I care about you both so much and it kills me a little that I can’t even put you guys in the same room together.”

This is why I wanted so bad lie to him about the whole thing with me and Tiffany. To see that look of sadness in his eyes and to hear what he said just made me feel like I failed at being his friend. I love him so much and I’d probably pick a fight with anyone that dared to hurt him and I know that he’d do the same thing to me. Hell, he had actually fought some people that hurt me in the past, so why can’t I just do this little thing for him? All I need to do is just try harder and put that incident with Tiffany behind me, and I’m all set. I know that it’s not gonna be easy but I just have to do that. It’s for Nate, after all.

“Hey, why don’t you give Tiffany and I more time? I mean, it did take me a couple years to finally be able to be comfortable around the clowns that are your band mates, right? I promise I’ll try really hard this time.”

I grinned after I said that to him and started wriggling my eyebrows up and down, causing Nate to laugh and put an arm around my neck whilst messing the hairs on the top of my head with his other hand. Mission accomplished, then, I get him to laugh again and that’s enough to defeat any other thing that I’m feeling.

“Alice, the guys are gonna leave soon… oh hey, Siwon.”

*SIWON’S POV*

Both Maddie and I looked up as we saw Eunhyuk walked in to the room, already changed and looked like he’s ready to go somewhere. Upon seeing him, Maddie’s eyes widened and she quickly jumped and started running around gathering the things that she’s gonna wear. I suddenly found myself observing her as she hastily threw her faded denim jacket on over her loose long black tank top and legging that she already had on before putting on her signature goth-cross ring on her right index finger and the long pentagram necklace on her neck. This was the typical-Maddie look, all black with a little touch of goth here and there, which I think is pretty interesting and it somehow really suit her. She’s always been different that way. As she tried to put on her combat boots whilst standing up, she started swaying and looked like she was about to lose her balance. Aish, this girl, she knew it herself that her balance isn’t that good yet she still tried to pull off something like putting her shoes on while standing up. I was about to stand up and helped her but Eunhyuk had already beat me to it. He quickly walked over to her and wrapped an arm around her waist, effectively stopping her from falling over completely and she just grinned sheepishly at that.

“Aish, why don’t you just sit down first before putting on your shoes?”

“I thought we were in a rush.”

“Well, is it worth breaking your neck over it?”

Maddie grinned once again at what Eunhyuk was telling her and suddenly that feeling of like I was intruding them washed over me again. I know that it sounded so wrong but it’s like… I really have a bad feeling that Maddie somehow didn’t need me whenever Eunhyuk was around.

“Where are you guys going?”

I asked at the two of them, looking for anything to talk about to distract me from that unsettling thought that came over me earlier.

“We’re just gonna catch a movie. Hey why don’t you come, Nate? Hee, Leeteuk, Yesung, Kyu and Ryeo is coming too.”

“I’ll… ask Tiffany whether she wanted to go or not and I’ll catch up with you guys.”

Which was completely true, since my girlfriend is still in my room, probably still a little upset about what just happened and I doubt it that she wanted to come.

“Okay, then. Just call me if you and Tiffany decided to come so I can buy extra tickets, ok?”

“Yeah, I will.”

Then she walked out of the room with Eunhyuk following closely behind her after they both waved goodbye at me. As soon as she left another weird feeling came over me, I felt like I shouldn’t have just let her go like that. I looked over to my side, to that part of the bed Maddie had sat on just seconds before and wished that she was still there. It’s odd that she’s now physically closer than ever to me but felt like she’s so far away. Is it even right of me to blame Eunhyuk for sort of taking her away from me? Cause if it weren’t for him, Maddie would probably still be here with me and we can talk and laugh about pretty much nothing but all the while still keeping ourselves entertained. Yeah, only being with Maddie can do that to me. But what if their relationship intensifies? Will I completely lose her? Hhhh… I seriously need to get a grip.

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*ALICE’S POV*

I let out a sigh as I was putting some of my camera equipments back to their respective cases in the dressing room of a photo studio. Today was quite tough as the guys’ management company suddenly contacted me in the wee hours of the morning, telling me that they need new photos of the guys together with the SNSD girls and basically ordered me to conduct an entire photo shoot in one day, in the middle of the freakin’ tour. Me and the guys’ team practically slaved ourselves detailing the concept, location, just… pretty much everything in a matter of hours while the wardrobe was being shipped. I would like to thank my good lord Jesus Christ for today, seriously, as we somehow managed to find a studio that was ready to use last-minute together with the equipments. I’d seriously be ed and not in a good way, if we didn’t find this studio on time.

“Great job today, Alice, you really pulled it off.”

I looked up and saw Mr. Kim, the company’s representative, already standing beside me and patted me on my back.

“Oh, thanks Mr. Kim, couldn’t’ have done it without the team, though.”

“Yes, indeed, they helped a lot too. By the way, Alice, have you ever considered working permanently with the company?”

I felt my eyes widened at what Mr. Kim said and a rush of excitement quickly filled me up. My first real job as a photographer and I’m already offered this kind of opportunity? This is totally unreal.

“Um… I haven’t really thought it through cause this was supposed to be a temporary thing just for this summer cause… I still have school back in the States.”

“Oh. Okay then, if you’re done with school, perhaps you can give us a call? I think we can work something out for you career-wise.”

Mr. Kim handed me a business card before smiling at me and walked out of the dressing room. I took the card with an almost trembling hand and looked at it in disbelief. I just got a job offer from one of the biggest entertainment company in Korea, you have got to be kidding me! I looked around the room and saw that Nate was talking with the guys and I immediately wanted to tell him this great news, I bet he’s gonna be just excited as I was. But just as I was gonna walk towards Nate, I felt someone grabbed my arm, hence stopping me from walking away. I turned around to see Tiffany looking intently at me, and by the look on her eyes I could tell that she wasn’t happy. Ever since I accidentally walked in on her and Nate she’s been doing nothing but giving me the cold shoulder, completely refusing to even acknowledge that I existed. I tried to talk to her a couple times, just to try and work something out for the sake of the promise that I had made to Nate but the whole time I felt like I’ve been talking to a wall. Every time I said anything to her, she’d just stare me down and walked away, going to her group of girls and I knew that they were immediately talking about me. It seriously began to drain my energy. So to see Tiffany do this out of the blue, I could tell that it’s not gonna be good.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Her voice was so cold that it nearly made me unable to say anything. Why does this girl hate me so much?

“I wanted to talk to my best friend.”

“You just couldn’t be smart and listen to me, could you? Stay the hell away from us.”

“Tiffany, how can I do that? Nate’s my best friend, I couldn’t just stay away from him like you said.”

“Oh my god, Alice, as if what you did the last time wasn’t enough!”

I let out an exasperated sigh at what she said. I seriously don’t know what more I could say to this girl. I mean, seriously, how can you change the mind of a person who was just determined to hate you from the get-go?

“Look, I apologized to Nate about that, I even tried to apologize to you if you would’ve just listened to me, it was a mistake. Why can’t we just try to at least be civil to each other, Tiffany? It’s breaking Nate’s heart to see us like this.”

“Oh, we are so past that point, Alice, trust me. Why would I even be civil to the loser who’s trying to steal my boyfriend?”

“I’m not trying to…”

“Oh just cut it already and just admit that you’re nothing but a man-stealing , will you? Quit trying to look so damn innocent when we both know what kind of a you are. God, your parents must be so ashamed to have a child like you. Then again, I definitely can tell the kind of parents you have, seeing how disgusting you turned out, they didn’t do their job well enough.”

I could endure her calling me a , a , or anything else, hell I’d take them any day and I wouldn’t even do a thing about it. But for her to drag my parents into this was just going too far. I suddenly just saw red and before I even had the power to stop it, I just snapped. I didn’t even realize what I was doing until I heard the sound of a slap echoed through the room. My breath started to came in short intakes and I felt my palm stinging from how hard I had slapped Tiffany across her face. I was never the one to be hostile towards anyone but this girl just pushed my buttons. How dare she talked about my parents to me like that, she doesn’t even know what happened to me. I lost track of what was going on around me cause I was just paralyzed by the sheer anger that took over me. I didn’t even notice that Tiffany was already surrounded by her group of friends and all of them were talking over each other, yelling stuff at me in Korean. Truth be told, at that point I didn’t even care, they could yell at me all they want.

“Maddie, what the hell are you doing?!”

Nothing prepared me for this. Not once in my life was I supposed to prepare myself for Nate, holding onto my arm tightly with the look of pure anger on his face that was clearly directed at me. I have seen that look before, when he fought off those kids who tried to hurt me back when we were 13, but that look wasn’t directed at me, NEVER directed at me.

“You promised me, Maddie, and this is what you did?! God, it’s like I don’t even know you anymore!”

Nate then let go of me and quickly went to his girlfriend’s side. But to me, he might as well just pull my arm off and that would hurt less than what he did before. He didn’t even ask me why I did it, he didn’t even think that there was a reason behind what I did. He just quickly jumped into the blame game, me being the object. How did it get to this? How did my best friend turn on me like this? Suddenly it was too suffocating to be in that room, it hurt too much to even lay my eyes on Nate now, and I just ran. I ran out of the dressing room, not even realizing where I had run off to. I stopped, trying to catch my breath and I found myself at a little balcony overlooking the city, not knowing how I ended up there. I leaned my elbows onto the railing and held my head in my hands. This was the first time in the whole tour where I wanted to go home really bad. Things are going in a way that I never thought it would go and I just felt… lost. If there was one thing that I know I could always lean on to no matter what, it was Nate. But now… I felt like I already lost him. What am I gonna do now? What am I gonna do without Nate?

“Alice…”

I turned around as I heard Silver’s voice calling me. I half-expected him to ask me what happened, why did I do it, but he didn’t do any of those things. He just slowly walked closer to me and without saying anything, just pulled me into a hug. And I found myself being in the same position where I was a few days back in that hallway in the stadium when the whole thing with Tiffany started. Silver was literally the one that came between me and breaking into a million pieces and he somehow did the exact same thing now.

“You can let go now.”

Silver’s soft voice filled my head and I did just that. I let go. The tears that I had been holding in had began falling freely down my cheeks as I finally acknowledged the stinging pain tugging at my heart. I looked up as I felt a hand my back and the back of my head and found Lee and Hee on either side of Silver and suddenly felt this overwhelming gratitude towards the three of them. But it still hurts when minutes passed and Nate never came.

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My exams are done!! Yay! *throws confetti* :P And I'm celebrating it by posting an update... =] Hope everybody is still enjoying the story... Love you all... :*