“What is this?” Jinah asked. Her voice was lost and empty, from confusion and surprise.

          “You don’t like it, right? Gosh, I told you we should have gone for yellow or pink or something! Damn it, Suho!” Chanyeol exclaimed.

          “She always wore dark colors! Black, dark green, gray…”

          “I should run,” Chen mumbled to himself.

          “Guys, shut up,” D.O said with a sigh.

          “She’s going to beat us senseless oh my god,” Chen thought out loud.

          “That’s because dwellings can’t afford bright colors!” Chanyeol retorted as the gang’s shoulders sunk. Some of them shook their heads, others stuck their lips out, as if they had expected a dull response from Jinah. “Bright colors are expensive, you idiot!”

          “Hey! Someone wore light blue and red okay? So they can afford light-colored fabric!” Suho argued.

          “That’s not the point! She doesn’t like it!”

          “How would I have known?!”

          “No, no,” Jinah said, startling them. They stopped bickering and faced Jinah. “No. It’s not that I don’t like it…I –” she looked at the gang. “Did you guys get this…for me?”

          Suho and Chanyeol blinked. Lay could tell the difference between pleasant surprise and displeased shock, and Jinah was pleasantly shocked.

          Baekhyun rubbed the back of his neck with a slight grin, “Well, we figured you couldn’t bring a lot of clothes to the base. I know I got you some comfortable clothes, but it’s different from this. And it’s not like you can wear the black dress outside…I mean, you can, but it’s pretty obvious you’d hate that.”

          Jinah’s mouth was ungracefully hanging open, but she couldn’t help it. For someone who never even received a birthday present, a gift of free will was a big thing. The black dress was for the Rave. It wasn’t really a gift. But this – she took out the black pants, neither tight nor loose, and skimmed her fingers over the white shirt, speechless.

           “There’s more,” Luhan’s voice said, but it sounded distant. Jinah was too into the idea of receiving a gift. But she heard him. She picked up the shirt and below it was a black leather jacket. A real leather jacket, made out of real leather, not simulated ones – she could feel the difference of quality in the material. Leather was so expensive! She couldn’t find the right words to say. But there were only two that was necessary, Jinah knew. It was the right time to say it. “Th –”

          “I had no part in this,” Xiumin stated flatly as he got up from the couch. “Tell me when we’re leaving – I’ll be in my room until then.”

          Every single person was glaring at Xiumin’s back. Except for Tao, who followed Xiumin into their room. The rest were boring holes at Xiumin’s back until it disappeared behind the door.

          “Jinah, don’t mind him –”

          “He has issues –”

          “He’s an –”

          “Really, you shouldn’t care –”

          A whole wave of reassurances and comfort words hit her. But even Xiumin and his juck words couldn’t diminish the genuine happiness Jinah was feeling. “Thank you,” Jinah said, interrupting them all. “Thank you, thank you – a lot!” she gleefully cried, hugging the three articles of clothing.

          Even Luhan was taken back from her outburst of joy. Sehun, who was hardly ever surprised, blinked twice. His face was blank, but that unbalanced movement was something big for the demon. They hadn’t thought that they could break the Callidum girl’s thick, hard wall which had kept them far from her thoughts and emotions, this quickly and easily. She was always cold, distant, and quiet. A bit off. Unapproachable. Intimidating, in a way. Unhappy, upset, unaffected. And here she was, eyes twinkling and whatnot, all because of one gift.

          Suho was a bit surprised too. “I didn’t know you’d like it this much,” he mumbled honestly. But he recovered from his surprise quickly. He grinned charmingly at her, “I’m glad you do though.”

          Jinah’s wide teeth smile went from ear to ear. “I like it a lot. And…” she looked down at the pants, shirt, and jacket. “I’ve never gotten a gift before, so I wouldn’t dream of getting something this expensive.”

          Baekhyun’s jaw dropped down. “You’ve never gotten a present before?! Not even for your birthday, or dwelling graduation or something?”

          She chuckled. “I don’t know when my birthday is, and I spent my dwelling graduation day with you guys, eating, shopping, and gaming.”

          “What?!” Chanyeol stood up. “You have got to be kidding me.”

          “What about a Christmas present?”

          “Get-better gift?”

          “Friendship anniversary or whatever you girls celebrate?”

          As the whole gang started to get involved in the conversation, bombarding Jinah with questions, Sehun stayed back, as always. Sehun let the gang do the talking, Jinah the answering. Instead of speaking, Sehun observed. Jinah was happy. Her smile was brilliant and bright, dimples were deep and clearly present – not faintly through the forced ones which hid her true feelings that she had been giving them. Her smile was – even Sehun thought of the word – beautiful. Her dimples were uneven and her lips were lined up slightly awkwardly, but all those little flaws made it so lovable and beautiful. She enthusiastically, and a little bashfully, replied to every question thrown at her. The gleam in her eyes didn’t leave. It stayed around.

          Luhan couldn’t help but stare at her. He had never seen someone filled with this much happiness, especially not someone like Jinah. Never. This girl…so her behavior lately and true nature were in contrast. Someone who could look and feel this happy could never be the person Jinah presented herself to be. You’d think Luhan would lose interest in her now, since he figured her out. But in actuality, his curiosity grew. What is her true nature? He knew for a fact that no one could look that happy all the time, especially not Jinah. The little awkward hair-brushing, the way she hesitantly her lower lip – she obviously wasn’t used to this – any of this – feeling, attention, situation.

          Once the questions died down, Jinah met eyes with Luhan, who had been shamelessly staring at her. “Is there something on my face?” she asked.

          He smiled at her. How could he not, with a smile like hers? How could he not, when the light in her eyes stayed? How could he not, when it was the cold and distant Jinah? She wasn’t an Ice Princess. An Ice Princess could never have a smile like hers. She wasn’t even a princess, more like a warrior. And he couldn’t explain the feeling he felt, like he had left something behind. The feeling of missing. He missed her smile. There was no trace of one on her face anymore as she started rubbing different parts of her face. That was when he answered her, “No, there’s nothing on your face.”

          She nodded, a bit awkwardly. Slowly, the little sparks in her eyes faded. Luhan wanted them to stay but he didn’t know how. And before he knew it, like the way an eclipse covers the moon, her eyes was dark and the light was gone. She seemed less happy and much colder. Still, she smiled with her lips closed and said, “Thanks. Can I…uh…”

          Lay smiled at her. He was still as kind as ever. “Say what’s on your mind, Jinah. Be at rest. Ask anything.”

          She lifted the gift a bit. “Can I change into this?”

          “Yeah, of course!”

          “Definitely!

          “Go right ahead!”

          “You can even wear it in the shower, if you want!”

          Four idiots: Suho, Chen, Baekhyun, Chanyeol. At first Jinah thought of them all as incredibly annoying, except for Chen. Well, Baekhyun seemed very nice but was extremely talkative. Chen seemed a little mysterious and mature, but from the Rave, Jinah Chen’s playful side, which she wasn’t expecting to see. D.O too – he was quite nice. Hesitant and awkward, but nice. Over the past few days she saw different sides of them. Some were the same as Jinah perceived them to be, people like Chanyeol, Suho, Sehun, Xiumin. But the fact that they were being less closed off, encouraged her in a way. All of the sudden, she didn’t hate the gang so much. She never really hated them, but she didn’t like them either. Not at all. The base was comfortable but the atmosphere wasn’t. She might as well have been in a box the past few days – with food and a really comfortable bed, that is.

         She smiled awkwardly at them. It was small and short for she remembered her dwelling again. Goodness, I really gotta visit… Jinah slipped back into her room and quickly changed. Meanwhile, the gang took a deep breath when the door closed.

         “She likes it, then?” Baekhyun asked, in desperate need of absolute and unambiguous confirmation.

         “Yeah,” breathed Chanyeol, feeling relieved himself. He felt as if the sky has been lifted off of his shoulders. “Thank the stars.”

         “She’s not going to beat us senseless, okay,” Chen eased himself.

         Kris frowned at him. “What were you even mumbling on about during this whole – opening-the-gift thing?”

        Lay ruffled Chen’s hair while laughing. “He was worried that Jinah would beat us all up. Weren’t you, Chen?”

        “Damn. Have some faith in all of us, Chen,” said Chanyeol. “She doesn’t have an ability, right? All twelve of us do. We’re stronger than her. I mean, come on – twelve versus one?”

         “Unless she somehow magically gains an ability. Then we’re dead,” Baekhyun said with a laugh.

         “She’s a female. We got this whenever,” Kai shrugged. “It’s not like she can actually do something to hurt us.”

         Baekhyun shook his head. “You’ll regret saying that, Kai. She’ll make you regret it.”

         “So it only takes a week for you to give into female charm, hey? Thought you were stronger than that, buddy.”

         Baekhyun punched Kai lightly with a joking frown. “Callidum candidates are the strongest. You know that.”

         “Yeah, and the second most stubborn ones.”

         “Which is also a part of strength,” Baekhyun grinned, just as Jinah came out of the room in her new clothes.

         She cleared a bit because they were all scrutinizing her. “Wolf, huh?” she said, turning around to show them what she was talking about. At the back was a picture of a large white wolf head with the word curving on top, “WOLF”, and at the bottom, “GENERATION SEVEN”. “Gen Seven, yeah?”

         Suho grinned. “Cool stuff, huh? Since we’re going to the interview, we figured you should have a team jacket too.”

         “Fang’s going to be there too, with the reason for their release of their Prix. It happened like, sometime last week or something,” Chen informed them as he got up and put on his team jacket too. It was surprising how he was almost cowering in fear a few seconds ago, and now he seemed as relaxed and mature as ever.

          “Do they have fourteen or thirteen Prixes?” Baekhyun asked, while kicking Xiumin’s and Tao’s door to indicate their leaving. “Maybe it’s twelve.”

          “I lost count,” Chanyeol said, rolling his eyes. “They release one monthly, don’t they? And they get new ones. Jack, they disgust me.”

          “They disgust everyone,” Kai said. “ing Ricky and Chunji. And Doojun. I’m going to murder them one day.”

          Chen groaned. “Drama. Hate it.”