*HEECHUL’S POV*

“Hyung, do you think she’ll hate me forever if we do that for her birthday surprise?”

“Well, she’s not gonna hate you forever cause… she’ll murder you on the spot if you dared to do that to her. Mind you, she WILL figure it out, we’ve done that on her birthday two years ago.”

Hyukjae huffed like the little boy he sometimes was and leaned back onto the car seat inside the van that’s taking us from the airport to our hotel in Tokyo. And I was mildly glad too that he had shut up about it because oh my god, during the four hour flight from Shanghai that’s the only thing that he could talk about! I mean, i got it that Alice’s birthday was just a few days away and Hyukjae was obviously trying to play the role of the ideal boyfriend by planning a surprise party for her but… one topic of conversation for the whole flight? ONE BLOODY TOPIC ABOUT A SURPRISE PARTY? If airplanes had bigger windows, I’d probably thrown that monkey boy out the window already. As much as I loved my baby sister and wanted to plan a surprise party for her myself, what Hyukjae was doing was just stretching it too far, don’t you think? And speaking of Alice’s birthday, I couldn’t help but to grin at what Hyukjae had bought for her as a present. All I could say was… I didn’t know that stingy monkey actually had it in him to spend that much on a present. Well, he’d been known to splurge on presents even for his previous girlfriends but this… this was on a whole different level. The amount of effort, and money for that matter, that he spent on this was Hyukjae’s personal record, I think.

And while I was on the subject of Alice and Hyukjae, it surprised everyone, me included, how fast their relationship had grown since they had been together. When you see them acted around each other, they gave off the vibe of a couple who had been together for years when in fact, well they’d only begun dating for a little more than a month, give or take. I was all for it at the beginning, I was just happy that Alice was finally able to truly open herself up to someone and I was also glad that the someone was Hyukjae cause that meant I could always keep an eye on that boy and it would be easier to poison him if and when he so much as hurt Alice in any way. Calm the down, I was just kidding. I think. Anyways, the point I was trying to make was that even though it seemed to be all cute that they were already that close after only a month into their relationship, lately I just felt like something wasn’t quite right. And it wasn’t like I felt that way since the beginning of their relationship but it was more like how I felt about it these past few days.

Lately Alice and Hyukjae were just… so ridiculously close that it seemed like they didn’t even feel the need to see or hang out with anyone other than each other, and I noticed this ever since we got back from that holiday we had in Chengdu. They would spend the majority of their time either locked up in Alice’s room or cuddling and stealing kisses here and there when they happened to stay in the room Hyukjae and I shared, something that I haven’t grown accustomed to and never would, to be honest. Oh come on, don’t try and tell me to tone it down cause Alice wasn’t actually my blood-related baby sister, she might as well have. She’s like the female version of me sometimes. If you’re done judging me by saying that, you try looking directly at some kid your baby sister’s face off! Awkward, right? It’s like you were torn between wanting to castrate that kid on the spot but couldn’t actually do so (because one, that’s illegal, and two, she’d totally do the same thing to you if you do that), and being totally cool with it because as much as you despise their PDA’s you know your baby sister loved that stupid kid. Oh, and even then, whenever they stayed in my room and I happened to walk in, either one of them would leave first, and the other would follow a few seconds later. Talk about being painfully obvious right there.

It just kinda worried me lately because I suddenly got this odd feeling that my baby sister and that monkey boy might be… moving a little too fast and too soon, which would never result in a good thing although at the same time I kept wishing that that’s not the case with them. They had been friends since Alice was just 16 or something, just after Siwon joined the company, and even though I knew for sure that on some levels Hyukjae’s feelings towards Alice weren’t necessarily that of a normal friend, at least they clicked and they cared for each other even before the relationship turned into the boyfriend-girlfriend type. God knows how hard it was for Alice to open up to someone else other than Siwon when me and the guys were first introduced to her. The Alice that everybody knew now was the process of seven long years of trying to break down the wall around her one brick at a time, that’s how introverted she was. Even after that many years, not even half of the guys knew who she really was. Hyukjae, Donghae and me were probably the only people besides Siwon who could see, like truly see the girl behind all those layers of defenses because she was the one who decided to let us know. And seeing Alice and Hyukjae being that attached to one another… I was just afraid that Alice would completely shut herself off from the world if anything went wrong between her and Hyukjae, which would be even worse than when we first knew her.

Oh and another odd thing that I noticed was that… around the same time that Hyukjae and Alice’s relationship developed fairly quickly, hers and Siwon’s seemed to be… drifting further apart. Of course that was that thing with Tiffany, which everybody knew about but this time it seemed like there was more to it. My gut feeling told me that something must be behind that simultaneous change. I had a wild guess on what it was about and I had even confronted Siwon about it twice but he completely closed himself off and insisted that it was nothing like that. I found it hard to believe him but then I figured it would be useless to dig that kinda information from Siwon when he didn’t have it in him to tell me that. Forcing Siwon to tell you something that he didn’t want to was about as effective as feeding a dead animal, it wouldn’t make any difference. So then I kept my own theories to myself and just decided to step back and mind my own business. As much as I loved the three of them, there’s only so much I can do when it came to their personal lives.

I looked over to my side where Hyukjae was at as he huffed again for the umpteenth times these past few minutes, looking back and forth from his BlackBerry to his iPhone. What’s wrong with this kid now?

“Can’t decide which number are you gonna give to that interviewer who was hitting on you last night?”

Hyukjae’s face was filled with horror at my question and his eyes went as wide as his small single-lidded eyes allowed him to. Hahaha, I know I shouldn’t be physically making fun of him but oh dear god, that kid’s eyes were so small it surprised me that he could still read anything! Okay, I really should stop.

“What? N-no hyung, it’s not that. I didn’t even pay attention to her, you know that!”

“Good, I was just testing you. Because you know what kind of mental and physical torture I’m gonna do to you if you cheat on my baby sister, right?”

I glared at the monkey boy beside me and he just looked down, mumbling something that sounded an awful lot like ‘I know, that’s why I didn’t give her my number when she asked for it’ and I smiled proudly at that. This kid was a fast learner. But even after he said that, he kept on looking back and forth at the two gadgets in his hand whilst fidgeting in his seat.

“Yah! Would you quit doing that? I’ve already come up with a plan for Alice’s surprise party so zip it, okay?”

“Alice hasn’t replied my texts, hyung, and I don’t know where she is right now.”

Was I hearing things? Did Hyukjae just say that the reason he looked like a fish out of water for the past few minutes was because he didn’t know where Alice was and she wasn’t replying to his texts????

“Jeez, possessive much? You do realize that she’s probably already at the hotel right now doing some preliminary meetings with the whole team for the show tomorrow, right? And that’s why she can’t reply to your texts?”

“I know, it’s just… it’s not like her to not reply my texts immediately. Plus I haven’t seen her since after we left the hotel in Shanghai.”

I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was he always this sappy or was this something new? I stared at Hyukjae in disbelief and he stared back at me, looking like he was just as confused as I was. I brought my hand towards his face and flicked him at his forehead, cause I couldn’t quite figure out what I was supposed to do to him. He flinched at the sudden attack and quickly rubbed that spot on his forehead.

“Ouch, hyung, what was that for?”

“That one’s for the sheer idiocy that you just told me. It’s only been 7 or 8 hours tops since the last time we saw Alice before we left Chengdu and you’re already acting like she’s been gone for the whole decade, or something! Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you or even Alice right now but can I just say that you need to tone it down a little bit? We barely see the two of you these days. Oh wait, I need to rephrase that, I BARELY SEE MY BABY SISTER BECAUSE OF YOU!”

Pretty much the whole van, which consisted of half of our members plus some of the managers and assistants, turned their heads around and looked at me as I nearly yelled that last sentence at Hyukjae. Yeah, I knew I went a little too overboard there, but it wasn’t like I was in the wrong, the monkey boy had been hogging Alice too much lately!

“You guys can go back to your iPods, cellphones, or PSP’s, nothing to see here.”

Good, they immediately did what I said. I focused my attention back at Hyukjae, whose face looked like he was just forced to drink a bucket of piss, most likely because I yelled at him. Wait, who was I kidding, of course he looked like that cause I yelled at him, poor kid could be so fragile sometimes.

“Look, the point is... don’t you think that if you hold on to her as strong as you are right now she’d just end up… running away from you? If you know her well enough you should know that she’s not the kinda girl who could be dictated like that.”

The expression on Hyukjae’s face shifted from fear to… acceptance, I suppose? Did that mean he thought I was right? , I really at this whole reading facial expression thing. I knew what I said didn’t , though.

“Hyung, this may sound super cliché but… I only have a few weeks or maybe days left to be with her, after this tour she’ll go back to the States, back to her life outside of us, back to her life… without me. We’re gonna be separated thousands of miles away, I’m gonna be traveling around the world like this and she’s not gonna be with me anymore. I can’t look after her, I wouldn’t know what she’d be doing, who she’d be with. And I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

I knew that hearing what Hyukjae said should’ve been great for me, because that meant I didn’t have to worry about Hyukjae screwing Alice over and that he actually took his relationship seriously, but I got the feeling there was just something more to what he was saying. I knew that he said that out of affection but… the sense of possession in what he said creeped me out a little bit.

“Since when did you become this… territorial over her? Do you actually think she’ll turn around and cheat on you the second you take your eyes, or hands for that matter, off of her?”

“No, it’s not like that, hyung. It’s just… sometimes there are things, or people, that came up and you need to put on more effort just to feel safe in a relationship and… you know what, I don’t wanna talk about this right now.”

It stumped me more than anything to see his strong reaction towards my question and moreover, what the heck was he talking about when he said those stuffs about things and people that made him feel the need to work harder in keeping his relationship and… wait, did that mean… had I been right all along?

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*DONGHAE’S POV*

I walked out of the elevator in our hotel in Tokyo, determined to find some kind of… gift shop or something, but I was disappointed as I saw that the gift shop was closed. Crap, that meant I had to go out and look for some kinda store that still opened at 11 PM. You may begin asking what the hell I was doing at 11 PM looking for a store or some kind. It was because I forgot to buy a birthday present for Alice, that’s why. Yep, after dinner I just realized that Alice’s birthday was just two days away and I hadn’t had so much as chocolates for her present, and considering that the schedule on the day before Alice’s birthday would be packed, tonight was the only time where I could find a present. Now the question was what could I possibly get for that little buster? When I thought about what she gave me for my last birthday… why the hell did I even have the heart to find something at the gift shop for her? Although I gotta admit it was kinda hard to beat that kick headphone I got from her, I had to deal with the time I got. Why yes people, although it seemed like Alice and I just spent the entire time bickering with each other I actually cared about her. Although… don’t tell her I said that cause then she’d just turn on that evil dongsaeng mode and would pretty much gloat and walk all over me at the same time. Not that she hadn’t been doing exactly that these days, but let’s not make things any harder, okay? Especially for me.

So then I spent the next hour walking the streets of Tokyo with my manager in tow because the second I told him I was gonna go out of the hotel he went ballistic and told me to wait for him because he couldn’t possibly let me go out alone and he spent exactly ten seconds to get to where I was at the lobby. Sometimes I really wondered whether my manager had been born with super powers, like how in god’s name could he get to the lobby so fast? Oh, and thanks to Tokyo and its quirkiness, I managed to find the right thing to buy for Alice in just one hour, one hour! I swear I spent even longer than that trying to pick out the clothes I’d be wearing to the airport whenever we were going anywhere. Those stuffs I put on for the airport? Yep, that’s the result of pondering for at least two hours the night before in front of my closet. Just the usual occupational hazard, I suppose, I couldn’t be caught dead wearing a pair of sweat pants and worn out sweater even if that’s what I wanted to wear. My manager, and sometimes my stylist, would probably taser me before I even so much as step my foot outside of the dorm if I decided to wear that.

Anyway, me and my manager were just a few steps away from the hotel when we passed by a 24-hour drug store, and I spotted Alice there. What the hell was she doing there all alone at this time of day? She seemed fine to me and didn’t look as if she was sick in some kinda way. She was standing in one of the alleys, eyebrows furrowed as she looked like she was seriously contemplating on what to buy from the items in front of her, which I couldn’t quite see from outside of the store. Alice finally picked up something and walked towards the cashier, and at that time I figured I’d just go in to the store and see what she was up to. No, I wasn’t brown-nosing; I was just… well, curious as to what my friend was doing. I handed the present to my manager and just told him to go to the hotel first before walking into the drug store.

“Yo, buster!”                                                       

Alice jumped about three feet up into the air when I greeted her before turning around to look at me, horror clearly painted on her face. She quickly shoved the little plastic bag containing whatever it was that she just bought into the front pocket of her hoodie, well it was actually Hyukjae’s hoodie, I knew that she had a habit of wearing her boyfriend’s outfits lately but I wasn’t gonna get to that habit I wished my future girlfriend would have because of the cuteness of it. Anyways, I was rambling a little bit there, what was up with her reaction? Like, seriously, it wasn’t like I was some sort of a ual offender or something.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, chill I don’t have any knife on me, buster.”

“ me sideways, you shocked the crap outta me, Hae.”

“ you sideways? Nah, I think I’ll pass. Even if I want to Hyukjae would probably kill me first before that could happen.”

Wow, if glares could kill I’d probably be dead because that glare the little buster shot at me when I said that… whoah, anybody would think twice before crossing her. And with that painful smack I just suffered on my left arm, of course courtesy of Alice, people would just be totally out of their minds to even dare to piss this girl off.

“Hey, it’s not my fault buster, you were the one who proposed it at the first place.”

“No I ing didn’t!”

“Jeez, okay okay, you didn’t just propose to you sideways and it was all some part of my imagination, happy?”

“Good boy.”

“How is it that you’re younger than me and you still have the balls to say that?”

“Because you’re not mentally 24 years old, end of discussion. Let’s just go, okay.”

And without even giving me any chance to say something, she pulled me by the arm towards the exit of that drug store. Just out of curiousity, I glanced at the alley where she was at a few moments before to see what got her up in a bunch just because I caught her there. Did my eyes just fool me or did I see various kinds of condoms in that alley?

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For those of you who also subscribe to my other fic Until The Bitter And Bloody End, I will only be repeating what I said there. That is if you have a habit of reading the author's rant note about life outside of AFF. xD I am currently in the process of finishing my thesis, which ultimately cuts down my free time, which leads to me having an unbelievably ty updating skills (not that I've been a class A updater before, but still xD ) so updates might come or might not, that's why I'm keeping the hiatus notice there until I'm sure that I can update more regularly. Anyway, thanks for sticking with me and Alice for nearly a year now. And did I tell you how much I love my readers, subscribers and commenters? it, I'm gonna say it again. I love you all! ^^