*ALICE’S POV*

I was exhausted, no joke there. I haven’t slept for the past… at least 40 hours, I think and work was going crazy, probably even crazier than usual now that we were about to wrap up Super Junior and SNSD’s activities in China and would move to Japan before going back to Seoul. The whole documentary team, plus me of course, had been holed up in this conference room since this afternoon, arranging and rearranging all of the photos and videos from all the activities here in China to be submitted by tomorrow morning to the management. I looked at my watch as I was packing up my laptop and camera and realized that it was already past midnight. Damn, I had been working for 9 straight hours. All the other photographers and videographers one by one had waved goodbye at me and retreated to their own rooms, looking as exhausted as I was.

I guess I should get some rest too. If I could, that is. I was running high on caffeine since I had consumed endless cups of coffee today in order to stay awake to work. And as I took my pack of cigarettes from the working table, I noticed how light it was and realized that it was empty, which meant I had finished a whole pack of cigarette in just one day. Scratch that, I finished the pack in less than 12 hours. Ugh, that didn’t sound good at all. I knew that I needed to go straight to my room and sleep the night away, but I also dreaded the thought of going back to an empty room. Hyukkie didn’t spend the night at my room last night and I highly doubt that he would tonight. I mean, Hyukkie and I were technically still fighting. Speaking of which, I knew I was telling Nate yesterday that I was planning to tell Hyukkie everything he needed to know about me but after Nate and I separated, I ended up staying up for the whole night thinking how I should tell him that. Me, being the paranoid that I am, suddenly got terrified at the prospect of Hyukkie knowing the most private things about me.

Deep inside, I knew that even before he was my boyfriend, he was already my good friend and I was pretty sure that if he knew about the things that had happened to me in the past, he would’ve stayed and be the awesome friend that he was and would sympathize and everything. But he’s my boyfriend now and everything just became a lot more emotionally complicated. At least it was to me. It still surprised me how I had grown to be dependant on him these past couple weeks, and I was so scared to think that I could lose him and the feeling of serenity that he had given me. And my deepest fear was that when he knew about those things, he would decide that I was too much for him to handle and he would leave. I knew I was being a paranoid by thinking about those things, but… I couldn’t help it.

In one way or another I had lost Nate ever since the that went down between me and Tiffany. Yes, we made up and everything and he’s still my best friend and the man that I had the strongest feelings for but something just wasn’t the same anymore… or maybe he wasn’t the same. Every day now, every time I looked at him, I always had a sinking feeling that he was hiding something from me, that his words didn’t feel as honest as they were before. I didn’t want that to happen to Hyukkie too, I didn’t wanna lose Hyukkie the way I had lost Nate. And you would probably notice that I didn’t use the word ‘love’ when it came to describing how I felt about Nate. I didn’t know if it was possible to care this much about two people at the same time but… that’s the closest thing that I could associate my feelings with. I hadn’t completely fallen out of love with Nate, I knew that’s impossible to do in just a couple weeks but at the same time I felt really guilty and it felt so wrong to say that I was still in love with Nate cause I think… I had already fallen in love with Hyukkie. Tch, I really sounded like an ungrateful when I said that.  

I let out a sigh as I closed the door to the conference room and started to walk towards the elevator, going to my room. I really had nothing better to do than just sleep. I had intended to have a talk with Hyukkie for the whole day yet we were so busy that we didn’t even get the chance to be alone, so all we could do was just send wary glances towards each other. I guess we would have to continue this cold war for another night, then. As I got out of the elevator and about to turn right on the hallway,

“Hey, Alice!”

I turned around to see at least half of the SNSD girls, one by one walking out from one of their rooms. I didn’t know who called me and truth be told, I didn’t wanna know. But I was curious as to why all five of them walked towards me, expressions unreadable.

“I think we need to talk.”

One of them pulled me by the wrist and forced me to walk with her as she said that. That’s when I knew something was wrong. It was kind of a dejavu moment when I yanked my hand away from her grip, and suddenly I found all five of them standing around me. Oh no, not this again. Not another Tiffany episode.

“You know, Tiffany is crying in our room right now. She had been like that since last night. Since she saw you and Siwon oppa by the pool looking so cozy and you were sitting on his lap, hugging him and he was kissing your cheek and you really looked like you enjoyed it.”

“We’re just…”

“Oh please, none of the ‘we’re just friends’ crap again!”

She cut me off before I even had the chance to speak, and I knew right then and there that this was gonna be a repeat of what Tiffany had been telling me. I felt my pulse started quickening as I found myself backed into the wall, with them still standing around me, like I was just their helpless prey.

“I really don’t know what Eunhyuk oppa saw in a like you. I mean, look at you! You’re dating him yet you’re running around being all over someone’s boyfriend. Who the hell do you think you are?”

This wasn’t happening again, please tell me it wasn’t. First it was Tiffany, and now it’s them. I felt like I was into a time machine and it spat me out to when I was 13, helpless as ever, as weak as someone could be. That was the worst possible place to be in, and I would do everything and give up pretty much anything not to go back there again. But that wasn’t my choice anymore when I felt myself being shoved like some little girl’s old doll that she didn’t want anymore, and at one point I even felt a hand on my forehead, pushing me by the head. I was supposed to fight, I was supposed to be angry at them for doing that to me but all I could think of was that feeling of pain and humiliation that spread throughout my body, making me so weak and unable to say a thing. And then all I could do was being angry at myself, at why I was so damn weak, why I couldn’t do anything, and why that they have to do this to me, out of all people. Those girls started speaking in Korean, but I realized one of them actually speak English and she always managed to slip at least ‘stupid ’, ‘’, or ‘cheap ’ in everything she said. The pain those words caused me was unbearable, it had woken up something in me that I thought was gone long ago. The horrible memories of years ago suddenly flashed around in my head and I was powerless to stop it. I clutched my head with my hands as those girls continued to yell at me and pushed me around. God, no, please stop this, please, I can’t go through this again. Suddenly I felt pain literally constricting my chest, and it became difficult for me to breathe properly. Oh my god, it’s happening again.

*DONGHAE’S POV*

“Where are you going?”

I turned my head towards Hyukjae as he asked that, effectively stopping me from walking out of his and Heechul hyung’s room. I was about two steps away from the door. It was just the two of us there, Heechul hyung was out somewhere with our manager.

“I just wanna go back to my room to get my iPod.”

Hyukjae opened his mouth as if he was about to protest at something but I already knew what it was. Yeah, being friends with that guy for so long kinda made me able to… read between the lines, so to speak, when it came to him. Or maybe in this case I almost knew exactly what he was going to say. So yeah, of course I cut him off before he even said a word.

“Don’t tell me I can have the remote control and changed the channels if I’m bored cause that way you’ll start yapping around again about Alice. Why do you think I let you play around with the remote control for the past hour? Sheesh.”

Hyukjae threw me a dirty glare but I was pretty sure I was right on the money when I said that. I put both my hands on my waist and threw the dirty glare back at him.

“Why don’t you just go and find Alice and talk everything out with her? Cause it sure ain’t doing you much good just sitting here coming up with theories about why she acted so strange yesterday.”

“Hae, I really don’t know what I should say to her. I mean, yeah, she was kinda over-reacting and she pissed me off a little bit but then I realized that I sorta… said some equally mean things to her too so, what, like should I go and apologize or something?”

“Aish, don’t you realize you have the answer already? Geez, and people say you’re the ’experienced’ one about girls.”

I, of course, added the air quote when I said ‘experienced’. I knew it pissed him off if I do that. Oh well, I had to sit there listening to him being such a about that fight with Alice so I considered it even. Heehee.

“Hae, I AM experienced about girls. In general, that is. But this is Alice, she’s a whole different thing, if you haven’t noticed. She laughed at my deadliest pick up lines, for cryin outloud, when all the other girls would probably start throwing themselves at me. So yeah, saying that she fits the mold of girls in general is like saying that Jigsaw doll is a cute little teddy bear.”

I couldn’t help but to grin at what my best friend just said. I mean, dear god, not only was he totally complimenting his girlfriend by implying that she’s unique, he even started using that scary- doll from that Saw movies that Alice was obsessing over as a mean of comparison. Jeez, Alice really had involuntarily put a leash around this guy.

“Let’s put it this way, I’m still gonna get my iPod from my room and if I get back here and find you still sitting here and moping about Alice, I won’t hesitate dragging you to her room so you could kiss and make up and become the super corny and annoying couple again, arasso?”

And then I really left before he had a chance to say anything. Ha, that should give him something to think about. I quickly made my way through the hallway leading to my room when I noticed something at the very end of the hallway. The first thing that I saw was Alice, crouching with one hand on her knee and the other one was clutching her chest while at least half of the SNSD girls were standing around her with hands on the hips and were pretty much yelling at Alice. What the hell? I half ran towards them, and as I got closer, I could hear all the derogatory remarks they were throwing at Alice. I felt myself starting to get pissed off at what they were saying to Alice and was fully ready to yell at them for doing that. But just a split second later, I saw Alice’s legs gave way and she collapsed to the ground, her face pale and damp from what looked like traces of tears. The girls were startled when they saw Alice like that but they didn’t even do anything.

“What the hell are you guys doing??!”

All of them turned to look at me, worry painted all over their faces.

“Oppa, we were just teaching her a lesson, she…”

“You guys were teaching her a lesson by calling her a ? A ?!! My god, what did she ever do to you guys?!! She had done nothing wrong to you guys and this is what you’re doing to her?! I knew what you guys were saying about her since you came but I didn’t do anything because I thought you guys were mature enough to do the right thing but this is just going too far!”

I could feel myself getting really agitated about the whole thing. Those girls were my friends too, some I even consider as my close friends but I really couldn’t take it anymore to see them doing this to Alice. I knew Alice, I knew she’s a good person and she just… didn’t deserve all of this. I was about to yell at them some more, but then I noticed Alice whimpering as she was still lying on the carpeted floor.

“, buster, what’s wrong with you?”

I knelt down beside her and touched her face. I noticed that she wasn’t just crying, she was covered in cold sweat as well and her breathing was so quick, she was hyperventilating and wasn’t even aware at her surroundings. Her eyes were half-closed and she kept on clutching her chest like it was in pain.

“Donghae? Who’s that…”

I looked up to see Siwon, walking towards where I was kneeling down. And it was as if all colors were drained from his face when he realized it was Alice lying on the floor.

“Oh God, Maddie.”

He came over to us so fast and scooped up Alice in his arms effortlessly, not even bothering to say anything to the girls, who were still there and could only watch everything happening.

“Hae, your room’s empty, right?”

“Uh… yeah…”

“We have to take her there and then call the doctor, quick.”

I could only follow closely behind Siwon as we walked quickly towards my room. Soon as we were inside, Siwon carefully laid Alice down on the bed and sat beside her while I picked up the hotel phone and called the in-house doctor. After I was done, I could just stand there and watch, questions running around in my head, like, what the hell happened to Alice and why she was like that. Siwon gently pulled Alice’s hand away from clutching at her chest and firmly held her hand in his. He leaned slightly towards her face and spoke softly,

“Maddie, sweetheart, you’re safe now. It’s okay, no one’s going to hurt you.”

It continued for at least a few minutes, Siwon repeatedly telling Alice that she was safe, and he was there with her. Amazingly, it looked like it worked to calm her down. Even though it didn’t seem like Alice was conscious enough but her breathing had slowed down tremendously and she was no longer hyperventilating. Then the doctor finally arrived and Siwon stood up from the bed to make room for the doctor as he started examining Alice.

“Hae, what happened before I got there? And what were the girls doing?”

“They were… standing around her, had her backed up against the wall, yelling all sorts of things at her. I’d say they were flat out bullying her.”

Siwon sighed and shook his head, looking equally frustrated as I was.

“But Siwon, tell me, what the hell was that? What happened to her?”

He didn’t immediately answer my question. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he massaged the bridge of his nose.

“She had a panic attack. She couldn’t be in a situation where she was surrounded by many people who she didn’t feel safe with, especially in extreme proximities like what the girls did. I just… don’t get why it happened again. She hadn’t had an attack in a long time.”

“Again? You mean this has happened before?”

Siwon only nod as a response, not once looking at me as he spoke.

“How come I don’t know about this?”

I wasn’t exactly asking Siwon that as I looked towards Alice’s frail form, she was still sweating bullets and even though she was no longer hyperventilating, I didn’t think she was conscious enough. What was up with this girl? As my question was met by silence, I guess Siwon caught that it was rhetorical to begin with.

*EUNHYUK’S POV*

Boring. Boring. Boring. Boring. That was the only thing that came to my mind as I surfed through the TV channels. There were actually some good shows, this B-Boy battle was on one of the channels, but even that wasn’t enough to catch my attention or to keep my mind away from thinking about Alice even for a little bit. As I finally decided to turn off the TV altogether, I let out a long sigh and finally admitted that Hae was right. Just sitting here and not doing anything to fix things between me and Alice wasn’t doing me much good. I hated how we just completely blew up on each other yesterday. I knew I was way beyond offended by the things she said, it even hurt me at some point but I wasn’t proud of how I handled things back then. I let my ego got in the way too much that I didn’t even realize how weird she was acting, how she completely went ballistic at something that was so simple in my eyes. Something was a little bit off with her and I should’ve seen it but I didn’t. I needed to see her.  

That was the solution I came up with as I stood up from my bed and took the key card to Alice’s room that had been lying around on the nightstand since these past few hours. I didn’t know why it took me so long to finally take it but now that I have, I was fully intending to end this stupid fight. Yes, it was stupid because Alice didn’t deserve this and neither did I. If anything that had been happening between us since we got together was telling me something, it told me that we were good together. And I wasn’t about to let that go to waste. I got out of my room and walked to the room that was only 4 doors down from mine, I slid the key card in and opened the door, only to be greeted with darkness. There was no sound coming from the bathroom and the bed was still made, signaling that it hadn’t been slept on. It was 1 AM, she couldn’t possibly be working, right? So I took out my phone and quickly dialed her number.

“Hyukjae, what’s up?”

My initial reaction to a guy picking up Alice’s phone was ‘what the hell?’ until I recognized the familiar voice.

“Hae, what are you doing with Alice’s phone, where is she?”

“Uh… she’s in my room, she kinda… you know what, just get your here.”

And the dude just hung up on me! But I listened to him anyway and began walking towards his room. As soon as I was there, the first thing that I saw was Hae and Siwon, standing a few feet away from the bed with wary expressions on their faces, staring at the doctor that was sitting on the bed… examining what looked like an unconscious Alice.

“What happened to her?”

That was all I managed to say as I felt an odd sensation in my insides as I saw that it was indeed my girlfriend lying there on the bed, unconscious and looking as pale as ever. It took so much out of me not to run to her and just pulled her into my arms cause looking at her being that way just worried me so damn much. Hae and Siwon looked at me, finally realizing that I was there. Hae didn’t answer my question, instead he looked at Siwon, as if telling him that he should be the one answering my question. Siwon looked hesitant to answer me, but he did anyway.

“Panic attack. It used to happen to her a lot up until she was, like, 16. It got better over the years, though, she hadn’t had an attack in about 4 years now. This is the first time it happened again.”

All these information Siwon was throwing at me seemed so foreign to me. I didn’t know about this, I always thought she was fine, I always thought there was nothing wrong with her. Hell, we’d been friends since she was 16 years old, yet I never knew this part of her life even existed. She seemed like s stranger to me all of a sudden. First it was that fight, and now this. Jagiya, what else are you hiding from me?

“Well, she had calmed for now. I had given her sedatives so she can rest properly for tonight. I also prescribed some vitamins for her and I suggest she starts taking them immediately.”

The middle-aged doctor had finished examining Alice and had started packing up his things. Hae, Siwon and me had walked closer towards him as he stood up from the bed.

“Uh… doctor, what exactly happened?”

Hae spoke up first, daring to ask the question that was already at the tip of my tongue, only I was a little scared to know the answer. I silently thanked him for asking that, though. As much as I was afraid to hear the answer, I knew I had to know.

“Well, this gentleman is right, she had a panic attack, all symptoms are pointing towards that. A lot of things can cause the panic attack, it’s either hereditary, post-traumatic stress… and a lot more. For this particular case, though, seeing as you said she hadn’t had this attack in years, the cause might be stress and exhaustion. Plus, her blood pressure level is dangerously low. Um… I would also suggest her to lay off the cigarette and coffee for awhile if she doesn’t want this to happen again.”

All three of us could just stood there, speechless at the doctor’s long explanation. We were all dumbfounded, well except for Siwon. He was probably the only person there who took it calmly without so much as shock on his face, like he had already known what the doctor was telling us. It was like a little slap to my ego. I knew that it was the least appropriate thing for me to feel right now, but I couldn’t help but to acknowledge that I indeed felt that way. I had been considerate towards the strong friendship that Siwon shared with my girlfriend, but it bothered me to see that they shared parts of her life I knew nothing about. As soon as the doctor left, Siwon immediately took off Alice’s shoes, and carefully covered her with the blanket before sitting beside her and wiping the traces of sweat on her face with his palm. Again, another ego-slapping moment.

“Hyukjae, you have the key to her room, right?”

Hae shook me out of the annoyed state I was in, his jaws were tightly clenched as he asked me that.

“Uh… yeah.”

“Give it to me.”

“What are you gonna do with it?”

“I’m gonna freakin… destroy her cigarette stash. That stubborn little buster.”

I quickly handed Hae the key card in my pocket without further questioning. He looked like he was really pissed off so I didn’t even want to argue with him. He sprinted out of the room as soon as the key card touched his hand. So I was left alone with Siwon. This was the first time that we were alone since that night at the club. The night that I was almost certain there was something more to Siwon’s feelings towards Alice than what he was actually letting out, or what Alice knew about. I was still certain that she didn’t know about it, though.

“She had gone through a lot, Hyuk. There’s a reason why she did what she did, why she is who she is now.”

Siwon said that out of the blue, without even turning his head at me.

“Why are you telling me this?”

He did turn his head around when I asked him that, I immediately despised the look he was giving me.

“So you won’t take her as some spoiled brat when she is anything but. I know about that fight.”

There were so many unspoken things between us that time. The reason why they were unspoken was because it would definitely change a lot of things drastically once they were spoken. A part of me wanted to pursue it, to lay everything out in the open to make sure I wasn’t just making assumptions. But with Alice there, in her fragile state, I decided there would be more suitable time for it.

“I wanna be alone with my girlfriend. If you don’t mind.”

I knew I wasn’t asking, it was more like an order rather than a request. I nearly forgot to add ‘if you don’t mind’ to be honest, but I did it anyway in respect of how much Siwon meant to Alice. Purely out of that respect alone. Perhaps Siwon caught the order in what I said, he stood up dejectedly from the bed, but making sure to softly grazed Alice’s cheek before he did, taking his sweet time in keeping his palm there. Then he left without another word. I felt the sense of hostility in me lessened down tremendously as Alice and I were the only ones left there. I made my way towards the bed, and lay down on my sides beside Alice. I propped my head on one hand as my elbow supported its weight and I could just gaze down at my girlfriend’s peaceful face in her drug-induced sleep. The first time I saw her here I was already worried, and seeing her up close like this again for the first time in around two days worried me even more. It’s like she had grown to become even more exhausted within the time we spent apart from each other on our so-called fight. The fight. It all just sounded so silly to me now. I was certain that we would have to really talk it over at one point. So I could fully understand the girl I was so sure I had fallen in love with. But again, that could wait. I leaned down and placed a kiss on her forehead before I laid my head down on the pillow next to her. I put an arm around her and planted another kiss on her temple.

“Pabo. Why did you have to freak out like you did? Don’t you know that I love you? It’s gonna take more than just secrets from your past to get me away from you. I’m staying, deal with it.”

I didn’t know what made me say all of that, especially to someone who was deep in her sleep and was highly unlikely to hear what I said. I just needed to say it, though. And I meant it. I love her and I’m staying.

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I updated after just 4 days!! What is this madness??! XD Well, ideas were flowing and I had plenty of time to kill too since I'm staying at home cause I got sick. Ah, I feel so productive when I post this chapter. :P Anyways, I am giving out the biggest love and hug from the bed that I haven't left since this morning (stupid fever!) to all the people who read, subscribe and comment on this little thing I got going. Borrowing Heechul's nickname (and cause I miss him so in much), you guys are all Universe Big Stars! :*  Oh yeah, the title of this chapter is taken from a Copeland song, such an awesome band.

PS. brattygurl, if you caught it, a part of this chapter was actually inspired from your comment. So thanks for that! :D