I wasn’t able to fall back to sleep after Leeteuk’s call.  As it was, I’d fallen asleep crying because Kyuhyun had never called to look for me.  Hadn’t he worried when he realized I wasn’t home yet?  Why did it take him until nearly four in the morning to try calling and texting me?  Didn’t he care at all?  I felt like weeping again just thinking about it.  I ended up getting out of bed and heading to the gym to get rid of the frustration building up in me.

            That morning, I knew Kyuhyun would be busy with the “I AM” event.  Thankfully, I had Immortal Song 2 that afternoon and met up with Eunhyuk, who gladly gave me the latest updates on what was going on.  He’d been too drunk in the evening to know what happened then but filled me in on what Sungmin had told him.  (I had my cellphone off to avoid getting called by Kyuhyun, so I couldn’t contact Sungmin either.)  I tried not to think about everything while performing but that’s next to impossible sometimes.  Still, it was nice to have a packed schedule that day.  It was easier.  The next day, I had absolutely nothing to do until later in the evening before we recorded Kiss the Radio.  That’s when I nearly went crazy trying to find something to do with myself, to keep my mind off of Kyuhyun and our disintegrating relationship.

            Donghae cleared his throat as he walked into the room.  “So…how is everything going?”

            I looked at Donghae through the now spotless mirror hanging on his wall.  “I can’t believe you haven’t washed any of the mirrors or windows since you moved into your apartment.”

            “But I don’t touch them so they’ll stay clean,” Donghae contended.

            I shook my head at his cluelessness.  “Idiot, just because you don’t touch them doesn’t mean they won’t get dirty.  Same goes with vacuuming.  Just because you eat all the meals in the kitchen doesn’t mean the carpets will stay clean.  Your feet drag dirt onto the carpet whenever you walk around.  And you’re the main cause of dust, since most of dust is skin cells from people anyway.  It just naturally flakes off,” Ryeowook explained.

            “That’s why I use lots of lotion and have the spa people take care of my skin,” he explained. 

            “You can’t actually keep from having that happen altogether or your skin would look nasty.  It needs to regenerate every few days.  When you walk around, when you brush your hair, when you scratch your , it’s falling off you.  Just face facts, you have to clean your apartment, even if you’re not here much.”

            Donghae eyed me suspiciously.  “I’m not used to hearing you swear unless you hurt yourself.”

            “I’m sorry,” I sighed, trying to scrub out the last little mark at the bottom of the mirror.  “My emotions are all over the place.”

            “How many times has Kyuhyun called you today?”

            “I don’t know.  I turned it off after a couple hours.  You can check it if you want,” I offered.

            I didn’t want to admit to myself that I was curious as well and knew that Donghae wouldn’t be able to ignore the phone.  He picked it up off his coffee table and hit the button to turn it on.  I watched him like a hawk as he stared down at the screen.  He actually jumped when the number of missed calls came up, his eyes going wide.  I took a deep breath before I asked so it wouldn’t look like I was that curious.  “How many?”

            “Thirty-seven,” he said. 

            “Since eight?  That’s six and a half hours.  He’s calling every ten minutes, basically.”

            “Doesn’t he have anything to do?”

            “Plenty, I’m sure.  He’s probably pissing off some director as we speak.  Has he called you anymore since the last time?”

            “No,” Donghae admitted.  “What you told me to tell him made him believe me completely.  I would have never thought to yell at him when he’s that crabby and expect him to listen to me.”

            I smiled to myself.  “Did you tell anyone else?”

            “I called Hyuk but he was heading to his house anyway.  If you’re not around to cook and Kyuhyun’s just going to be a jerk, what’s the point of staying?” Donghae pointed out.

            “If Kyuhyun had any idea that Hyuk knew my whereabouts, he’d never hear the end of it.”

            “Which is probably the real reason he’s going to stay at his parents,” Donghae conceded.  “And I won’t be able to stay away forever before he puts two and two together either.  I never stay away to work on music more than two or three days.  Everyone knows I hate being alone.”

            “That’s what’s so nice about having me here.  I cook and clean and don’t make any noise while you work on writing your songs.  And you have company,” I informed him.

            “You’re definitely an improvement on my last girlfriend,” Donghae teased, heading to the kitchen to snatch another cupcake I’d made this morning.  “I still can’t believe you know how to make this without using a box.”

            “Amazing, isn’t it?” I laughed. 

            “And you didn’t even need to look at a recipe,” he added.

            “Well, its Kyu’s favorite, so I’ve made it so many times I know it by heart.”

            Donghae poked his head out from the kitchen and smirked at me.

            “What?”

            “You’ve been taking care of that for so long, you don’t even know what to do with yourself when he’s not around.  It’s like that time he had promotional stuff out of the country for a few days and you ended up staying over at his parents’ house and helped Mrs. Cho redecorate her dining room and the office.  You can’t stand being alone any more than I can!”

            I turned my back so he couldn’t see me and then made a face.  I hate it when Donghae’s right.  If he can see through me, anyone can.

            “At least you’re not as mopey as I thought you’d be.  At first I thought you were going to sit around hogging the television and drinking all my beer.  That’s what Hyuk and I do whenever we’re having relationship problems,” he explained.  “And this is the first time I’ve ever seen someone break up with Kyuhyun, so I wonder how he’s reacting?”

            “Sungmin said he’s being a pain in the and accusing everyone of knowing something when they don’t.  I called him at about six this morning.  He told me he’s going to erase his call history once he’s off the phone with me because Kyuhyun already checked Yesung’s phone while they were at the screening,” I warned him.

            “So, basically he’s being unbearable, demanding, nosey, and self-centered,” Donghae summed up.

            “That’s what he’s like every day.”

            I wasn’t feeling particularly charitable towards my husband yet.  I was still hurt by his actions over the course of the last several months and I wasn’t going to get over that anytime soon.  But now that I wasn’t in the same place as him and had to rely on my memory to recall what he had going on for the day, I found myself wondering about him constantly.

            “Hyuk told me he stopped by the police station this morning to see if there’s a way of tracking your cellphone number,” Donghae informed me.  “Your husband might be a selfish sometimes but he sure is fixated on you.  You’re lucky you thought of coming here.”

            “I wonder if there’s a way the phone company can track me,” I pondered.  “If money’s not an option...”

            “Nah, Hyuk said he tried them first,” Donghae told me.  “They’ll only tell him which city you called from.  So, he knows your still in Seoul.”

            “But if he has the record of where I’ve called than he can probably see who I called too,” I realized.  “And I haven’t called that many of you.”

            “Do you really think that he’s going to go to that extreme?”

            “Sungmin’s erasing his call history and Hyuk’s heading to his house, just to avoid him snooping on them!”

            Donghae shrugged.  “Kyuhyun isn’t that cunning!  He likes to think he’s all smart and because he did well in school but when it all comes down to it, it’s street smarts a person really needs to make it through life.  He’s never had to struggle through life, he’s not from the streets—his parents are well off and he had a good education.”

            I narrowed my eyes at Donghae.  It’s not that what he was saying wasn’t true, it’s just that he had no idea how quick my husband was to pick up on things or how determined he could be with the right motivation.  It all depended on how much he wanted to find me.  The other night I believed he didn’t care but he was obsessively looking for me at the moment.  But was this an issue of pride or love?  Was he heartbroken or was his pride hurt because I left him?  Those are two completely different things.

            “Like I said, if I stay away for a few days, he’ll probably start to put two and two together,” Donghae continued.  “But he’s not going to figure out that you’re here that qui—”

            BAM! BAM!

            Immediately when I heard someone banging at the door, I knew.  It had to be Kyuhyun, I just felt it.  It was nearly three in the afternoon and if he’d only filmed one Radio Star episode today, than he was already off for the day.  If that’s even where he was.  I really should have copied down his schedule before I left.  Maybe he was on a radio show or had a photo shoot.  Whatever he had been up to prior didn’t matter anymore.  Instinctively, I knew it was Kyuhyun and I instantly went into panic mode.

            Donghae tilted his head to the side and gave me mocking look.  “Quit being so paranoid.”

            I brought my finger to my mouth to warn him to shush and then gathered up my bags and cellphone.  Donghae casually walked up to the door and looked through the peep hole.  Then he jumped back as if he were burnt.  He pointed to the door frantically and I nodded my head, knowing exactly who was standing outside the door.  I looked around and Donghae pointed to the front hall closet.  I quickly gathered my belongings and snuck inside.  Thankfully, there really wasn’t much in there but a few of Donghae’s jackets and shoes but I still had to sit down inside.  I tried to make myself comfortable and then pressed my ear to the door to listen in on their conversation.

            “Kyu!” Donghae exclaimed.  “Man, how are you?”

            “Okay, I guess.  I’m not interrupting anything, am I?  I thought I heard voices.”

            “Oh, that was me on the phone with Hyuk.  I had him on speakerphone.  He was just telling me all about what happened with you and Wookie.  Have you heard from him at all yet?”

            There was no verbal response, so I had to assume that Kyuhyun shook his head.

            “Is there anything I can do for you?”

            “I was hoping I could hang out here for a while with you.  I just can’t go back to an empty apartment and thought maybe you’d like to play a few games with me,” Kyuhyun said in his mopey voice. 

            “Well,” Donghae said h