The Yeah Yeah Yeahs was playing loudly in my room with me humming excitedly to Date With The Night while walking around and putting all the things that I’m gonna need into my suitcase because I’m basically gonna be on the road for the whole summer. Last night, Nate spent the night at Aunt Grace’s house and we stayed awake all night, talking excitedly about the things that we’re gonna do once we’re out on the road with his band mates. The downside of it is that he also excitedly told me about this girl he’s currently dating. I’ve seen the pictures and I’ve heard the stories and all I can say is that… man, it just doesn’t get any easier. The stinging pain on my chest every time Nate’s eyes lit up excitedly when he talked about his girlfriend never really had a time to heal cause to be honest, that pain was caused by how much I love Nate. And if I haven’t stopped feeling like that, would the pain ever really go away? This girl Nate’s dating is actually on the same entertainment company as him, SM Entertainment, and they had met when she started as a trainee there a couple years go. And by his stories, they clicked instantly, became friends, and began dating a couple months ago. To add salt to the injury, this girl is just drop dead gorgeous with the typical classical Korean beauty. Cute, feminine, sociable and just basically… the complete opposite of me, further validating that I had done the right thing by never letting Nate know how I feel about him. I don’t wanna put myself in that position, to be compared with the girl who, in my eyes, had obviously owned everything I’ve ever wanted; Nate. But I had tried my hardest not to focus on that and instead focusing on the fact that I’m gonna spend the whole summer with my best friend and his crazy band mates. Fishie Lee had texted me on my BBM with just 3 words about the whole thing of me joining them for tour; ‘welcome aboard, buster!’ Knowing Lee, those three simple words can actually mean a total and complete chaos, that’s how crazy he is. I heard a knock on my bedroom door and replied with a quick ‘come in’ as I was pretty sure that it’s Aunt Grace. Sure enough, Aunt Grace peered through the door and came in, smiling and clicking her tongue at how much my room looked like the inside of a plane crash from all the hysteria of last-minute packing.

                “You sure are ready to leave me all alone again, huh?”

I could feel my face fell as Aunt Grace said that. I had thought about how I’m gonna leave Aunt Grace again after I had left her for nine whole months of the remainder of the year, but that thought somehow got smaller and smaller as I excitedly planned every single thing I’m gonna do at my first job as Nate’s band’s official photographer.

                “Quit looking like that, Alice, I was just kidding.”

I breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of Aunt Grace grinning after she realized that she had gotten me good with that. She then sat on my bed beside the piles of clothes that I’ve prepared for the tour.

                “Oh. I thought you really meant that.”

                “Believe me, I’m just as excited as you. You and Siwon deserved this.”

Aunt Grace said that with a smile on her face, but I just caught something behind that smile. Yes she said she was excited, yes she smiled while she was saying that, but I just felt like there was something more in that, something that she’s not telling me about. So I sat beside her on my bed and asked,

                “What is it that you’re not telling me about?”

“I am excited for you, baby girl, I really do. When Siwon came, told me about this and asked for my permission I thought to myself; finally, a reason for Alice to be happy again after these past couple years of spending just a few days each year with her best friend. But I’m just… a little scared.”

To be honest, that’s the reason that I least expected to come from Aunt Grace. Why should she be scared? What does she think is gonna happen?

“Scared of what?”

“You’ll be on the road with him, living in extremely close quarters, a situation that you two haven’t been in for as long as you’ve been friends. And with the feelings you have for him… I’m just scared that if some things were to happen, you’re not gonna be ready for it.”

“What feelings?”

My defense started to rise as I felt the panic inside of me of the fact that Aunt Grace had said that. How the hell can she know? I haven’t even told anyone about this. The only things closest to me that know about how I feel for Nate in the past 16 years is only my diary and the millions of pictures that I took of Nate over the years because that way, I could feel like I have a part of him with me.

“You don’t have to pretend anymore, Alice. I’ve realized that there’s something more to your friendship probably even before you realized it yourself.”

I was instantly immobilized as I realized that all these years of pretending in front of Aunt Grace was in vain because she had already found out about that all by herself. Still with the dumbstruck expression on my face, I reached out and threw myself in Aunt Grace’s arms and cried, riding out all my frustrations after hearing Nate talked about his girlfriend on and on last night. Aunt Grace just whispered ‘it’s ok’ softly and my hair, letting me calm down first before saying to me,

“You wanna know how I found that out? When you were just 7 years old, on the first day you met Siwon, you actually had held his hand when before that, after your parents died, you wouldn’t even let me hold your hand. You were prepared to stand all by yourself when your parents were gone but at that moment, you were willing to share just a little bit of your burden with him, to depend on him even if it’s just to hold your hand. And as the two of you grown up more, it’s just becoming more and more apparent that you’re well… in love with him.”

It was amazing how detailed and precise Aunt Grace was, making me regret not telling her at the first place because somehow, if only I had told her earlier, I wouldn’t have to deal with this all by myself. I let go of Aunt Grace and she just smiled, wiping my tears away softly with her thumb.

“I wanna tell him so bad, Aunt Grace, I really do. But as time went by, it just gets harder and harder and he has yet another girlfriend now and it’s just… “

“When the time comes for you to tell him you’ll know, don’t force it. Because I think, for him, to comprehend this would be just as hard as how you try to tell him. Just… take a good care of yourself out there, okay? And have fun, it’s your first photographer job anyway, right?”

A small smile managed to make its way on my mouth. Aunt Grace is right; I just need to be patient. When the time comes it will come.

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                “You ready?”

I was honestly speechless at Nate’s question. To say that I was nervous and looked like a deer caught in a headlight would be an understatement because I must’ve looked like a complete idiot right there. I had taken off my dark Ray Ban aviator and just stared at the complete chaos that was unfolding outside of the car we were in at the airport. The first stop for Nate’s band’s tour is in Tokyo and the car from the management had picked both Nate and I up at his house this afternoon, and even though I had waited for this so excitedly, I half-thought that I would just turn around and leave, this is honestly too scary.

                “They don’t bite, Maddie, they’d just, well… scream like that.”

“You know, at this point I’d probably prefer for them to bite rather than scream like they’re freakin… possessed, or something.”

                “How bout we get off the car and get this over with?”

                “ yeah.”

I quickly put my aviators back on, a bit too eagerly maybe because Nate just blew up laughing at that before we both got out of the car. I slung my postman bag that contained my camera over my shoulder and took a deep breath before stepping out of the car. About a millisecond after Nate got out, the tons of teenage girls that waited at the airport, the ones that freaked the hell out of me before, erupted into what I think is the most ear-splitting scream I’ve ever heard. The fact that I got out of the car after Nate just completely went unnoticed as these girls realized that their prince charming just appeared. Well, in this case, my prince charming too, but I’m not gonna get to that right now. Thankfully, the hoards of screaming girls were quickly avoided as the bodyguards that were as big as a walk-in closet rushed us into the lounge at the airport where all the team for this tour was gathered.

                “How’s my baby girl doing?”

I looked to my left and saw that Hee was standing there with a familiar big grin plastered on his face and that immediately brought a smile to my face. Aahh, I miss this guy so much. I pretty much already consider him as my big brother. He’s at least four years older than me and he’s got that older brotherly quality to him that just made me kind of drawn to him and that’s how he treated me too, like I was his baby sister. I was actually kind of afraid of him at the beginning just cause I thought he was slightly bipolar. I mean, he could go from laughing and messing around into sulking and nearly yelling at everybody in a freakin blink! But as time went by, I don’t know, we just… clicked. Although a lot of people say that happened cause we were both equally weird. :P

                “Excited to see my awesome big brother again.”

I said, still with that big smile. But just as Hee and I were about to move in for a hug, two voices that I was so familiar with let out a shrill scream,

                “Buster!”

Oh my, there’s the sound of trouble indeed. I turned my head towards Fishie Lee and Silver, who had a matching grin on their faces as they saw me. And then suddenly they dropped their bags and set out to run towards me with the most mischievous looks and my eyes just went wide at that because they ACTUALLY run towards me. Before my brain truly registered what was really going on, I was suddenly suffocated and can you believe this, sandwiched between Lee and Silver who both hugged me from the front and back, which left little to the imagination, really. I could hear people snickering in the background at the three of us cause I’m pretty positive that the position that we were in was well, pretty compromising.

“Uh… guys, can you, like, let me go now? I hear at least one, oh wait, two broken s down there.”

 Lee, who was hugging me from behind, let me go first and Silver followed suit. They both stood in front of me with a similar confused expression.

                “You have s? But you’re, like… flat.”

                “Hey! I…”

I was about to protest at Lee’s comments when I realized that both his and Silver’s eyes had traveled from my face and down to my freakin’ chest. These guys are unbelievable. I should sue them for ual harassment any moment now.

                “Aish, would you two quit staring at her chest?!!”

Thankfully, Nate came to the rescue, slapping the back of Lee and Silver’s head hence effectively stopping them from molesting my chest with their eyes even further. Then the three of them started arguing and talking quickly in Korean and I could just roll my eyes at that thinking to myself, there they go again, sometimes magically forgetting that I don’t speak Korean AT ALL. But I couldn’t help but smile at that, seeing Nate being so protective over me never gets old. J

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*FLASHBACK*

                “Ouch, Maddie, that hurts!”

                “Just hold it for awhile, Nate, I’m almost done.”

Alice said patiently at Siwon, the concentration not leaving her for one second as she gently and carefully dabbed at the cuts on Siwon’s lips, the result of the fight that happened earlier that day just after school between Siwon and some of the kids from their school. The two 13-year-olds were at Alice’s Aunt’s house, the only place that they think is safe so that no one’s gonna see the cuts and bruises on Nate’s face because nobody’s home most of the time. Alice lived in the house with just her aunt and Alice’s aunt won’t be in the house for at least another 3 hours due to her work.

                “Why did you even have to fight them, Nate?”

The question that Alice had wanted to ask ever since they left the school finally slipped out from . She had been holding the question inside when they left school because Siwon still looked really angry and if there’s one thing that Alice knew about her best friend, is that never bother him when he’s pissed off cause that would trigger Nate to blow up even more and she didn’t want that. She was sad enough to see Siwon almost getting beaten up while she could just stand and cry at the side because Siwon screamed at her not to do anything. Siwon looked at Alice and could just sigh at her question. The things that those kids were saying about Alice were so horrible that he didn’t even have the heart to tell her, he cared too much about her. That’s why he couldn’t just stand around and do nothing when those kids kept attacking Alice with their insults. Throughout the six years that they know each other, Siwon had learned that Alice’s parents had died in a car crash, leaving her with just her aunt and virtually no relatives in Seoul. And being half-American half-Korean, Alice was different than the kids at their school, she looked different and she speaks different, and being different at that time was almost like an invitation to be mocked and bullied. It’s been 6 years since Alice moved to Seoul but she still refused to learn Korean, making her the only kid in school who was followed by a translator every where she went. Apparently at that time, sending Alice to an international school cost more than a translator dedicated to help Alice in school. Siwon still remembered that ever since they went to their primary school there was always those kids that were just bent on hurting Alice because, well… she was different. From there, Siwon just suddenly felt that if there was anyone that should be able to protect Alice and defend her all the time, it was him. 

                “They were talking bad things about you, Maddie, I couldn’t just…”

“Do you honestly forget that I don’t speak Korean, Nate? I wouldn’t even understand what they were saying about me.”

“But I do! I understand what they were saying about you and it was so horrible!”

Alice put down the cotton ball that she used to fix the cuts on Siwon’s lips and let out an exasperated sigh. She knew that her best friend can be so stubborn sometimes but she didn’t think that he’d be so worked up over this because to be honest, she didn’t care about what those kids were saying about her. The only thing about today that pained her was seeing the boy that she loved and cared about getting hurt, and that’s it.

                “I just… don’t like seeing you get hurt, Nate, that’s all.”

                “Well, I can say the same to you.”

The two smiled at each other, finally realizing that there was no point in arguing anymore, they just have to accept the fact that they cared that much about each other and that’s it. To Siwon’s surprise, Alice suddenly reached out and hugged him tightly.

                “I…”

It almost freaked Alice out how close she was into saying ‘I love you’ to Siwon, the first boy that she had ever had a crush on, who just happened to be her best friend. But something deep inside her prevented her into saying just that.

                “Thanks for everything, Nate.”

                “Anytime, Maddie.”

That’s what came out instead. Little did Alice know, that day probably would be the only time in her life that she even had the slightest courage to let Siwon knows what she was actually feeling, cause for the next ten years, that courage would become smaller and smaller, even though the feelings she has for him got stronger over the years.

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Finally have a chance to drop this update... School is going like crazy and I barely had time to breathe... *sigh* Anyways, thanks to those who subscribed and those who hasn't subscribed but read this story anyway, much love from me :* Comments will be much appreciated too, though... Kekeke :P