Donghae’s POV

“Kayla, are you bringing my favourite perfume?” I asked, seeing the purple and black lace bottle in Kayla’s bag. Kayla came in, carrying some clothes that she had washed the day earlier, and nodded.

“Yes. Why? It’s my perfume, not yours,” she replied. She sat down by her suitcase and began repacking her clothes again, throwing everything out on the floor.

“But it’s my favourite that you can have on...” I pouted. “When’s your plane leaving?”  I lay down on the bed, observing as Kayla’s hands quickly worked on folding her clothes and put them in the suitcase.

“In about three hours... So we have to get going soon. I wonder if I’ve brought enough clothes with me,” she said, looking at her overflowing suitcase. I raised a brow at her which she noticed when she looked up at me. “Okay, point taken... Hm, I’m done.” She closed the suitcase by jumping on it, eventually closing it. Kayla took her handbag and checked if the necessaries were all there. It was now that I realised how much I really would miss her. Kayla hadn’t spent a holiday like Christmas with me since we haven’t even been together for a year yet but that made me want to spend it with her even more. I had hid her Christmas present in a safe place, being the clothes she had chosen to wear on Christmas day; a red, knee long chiffon dress with sleeves. I would’ve loved to see her in it. Aw, I’ll miss her so much! Kayla closed her handbag and stood up, looking around. “All right, that’s it!”

“Great...” I said. I hoped she’d hear the undertone of unhappiness in my voice. My wish came true and I soon found Kayla hovering herself over me.

“What’s with you?” she asked.

“I’m going to miss you of course.” I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her down beside me, hugging her tightly. I inhaled her sweet scent by burying my face in the crook of her neck, which also made her giggle cutely.

“Hae, stop! It tickles!” she complained. “And we should go to the airport soon.”

“What has that got to doing with anything?” I teased. She gave me a meaning look. Like I didn’t know why she wanted to be early to the airport. There were always 10-20 fans who managed to somehow recognise one of us, no matter how well we tried to hide ourselves in the crowd. I let go of her and sat up. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Although I’m going to stay pissed at SM for-”

“You are not. SM has done enough for me already. They’re not going to change your schedule just because you want to drive me to the airport five minutes before my plane leaves. We’ll go soon and I’ll stay there while you get to your schedule. There’s nothing more to discuss, Donghae. Besides, I wouldn’t want to hold your schedule up either. I’ll be perfectly fine. I have lots of homework and things that need attention.” I wrinkled my nose, not really pleased with that answer.

“So homework is more important than-” I started but felt a finger on my lips.

“Don’t you dare say that,” Kayla warned. She shot me death glare. Though I couldn’t do else but smile, her glare was so adorable! “You’re the most important part of me. If you wanted me to I’d give up on pretty much anything to be with you.”

“That is what you have done, my love... I know you deny it but we both know I stopped you from studying and from going back to England more often and I’m preventing you from having a normal life with something called privacy,” I retorted. Okay, somewhere I knew she would be extremely annoyed with that retort and probably be a little mad at me. Nevertheless, it didn’t take away the truth from what I’d said. I could see Kayla set her jaw, clearly provoked. I took her hand in mine and kissed it. “Princess. I don’t regret it.” And I hope you don’t either, I added in my head. Kayla shook her head and sighed before leaning in to kiss me.

“You’re so stupid sometimes, Hae. Thinking that I do regret it... It makes me mad and sad so cut it out. However...it doesn’t change my feelings for you. Which, I guess, makes me stupid too.” We chuckled and kissed again.

“Let’s get to the airport now,” I said while getting up from the bed, dragging Kayla up with me. We checked the last of her things, Kayla said goodbye to the other members and then we went down to the car. I sat down in the cold car and started it.

Once we were at the airport, Kayla check in her luggage and we walked hand-in-hand to the passport examination. I heaved out a deep sigh, realising that this was the furthest I could go. Kayla giggled and kissed my cheek. “You’re so cute, Hae. It’s only a couple of weeks. We’ll probably KakaoTalk and call each other on Skype an-” I pressed my lips to hers. I didn’t feel like hearing this right now. After breaking the kiss, we hugged for quite some time.

“Send a text when you get there and I’ll be happy. Have fun. And I’ll see you next year.” I kissed her again. “I love you.”

“I love you too, my prince. Take care and don’t overwork yourself. See you next year!” Kayla pecked my lips then headed towards the queue. I waited until she disappeared out of my sight, then went back to my car. I couldn’t say that I felt sad or empty, but there was something missing, definitely. The other part of me.

 -

Kayla’s POV

I arrived to Oxford station at 11pm and was picked up by my mother and father who were very happy to see me. My sister, a girl who’s fairly interested in K-pop, had made me pancakes and was also very happy to see me. My sister, Sophia, is four years older than me and thinks that I should focus on my studies more than boyfriend. Although she did say that she thought Donghae was very attractive. Either way, Sophia lives with her boyfriend near Cambridge where both of them study to become teachers. My sister is a grammar-Nazi like that, she hates when one misspells things. After I had greeted her too, we all four in our little family sat down and talked. It felt strange speaking English again, but very nice and relieving as well. Sophia wanted to know everything about my acting part and came with lots of advice that she thought I was in need of. One of them was to stick to who I am and not become full of myself like many other actors are. My mother and father didn’t add much to that conversation, they were too busy telling me how much they’d missed me.

“So, tell me about Donghae now,” Sophia demanded as soon as we had got to bed in our old room - we had always shared rooms when we were small, something that changed when Sophia began her study at Cambridge while I moved to Korea. I could only guess what my sister was after in the conversation but I wasn’t going to let her found out the truth too easily.

“Well, he’s like real-life prince who treats me like a princess and I love him, he loves me. He makes me happy.” My sister’s expression made me giggle, it showed that I’d said the totally wrong things from what she wanted to know.

“All right. Let me put it this way then. Are you...” She made circled motion with her hand to implicate that she wanted me to fill in the rest of the sentence for her.

I instantly started giggling hysterically. Not sure why, but this subject felt strange talking about with my sister. Even though she should’ve been the first one to know. “Yes,” I mumbled shyly in the pillow. My sister gasped and hit me with her pillow, causing me to burst out laughing.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” she yelled.

“Shut up! Mum and dad can hear you!” I hissed playfully, still erupting in a fit of laughter. “And I didn’t really get the chance. It’s not like it’s that big of a deal. I’m twenty for crying out loud! Next year twenty-one. If anything then you should nag that I’m late.”

“That’s true,” my sister admitted. “Fine, as long as you’re not pre-” I grabbed the pillow in her hand and dashed it in her head. She glared at me while fixing her hair. “All right, I get your point.” I gave her a smug smile and lay down on my own pillow, looking up in the ceiling.

“It’s crazy that I still miss him,” I said, turning my head to Sophia. My sister smiled, saying that she was content with that comment.

“Did you tell him that you had landed?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. He had gone to bed then. I hope at least. He works at insane times so he could’ve been up.” I had spoken to my sister a few times about how Donghae’s and my daily life routines looked like but it was hard to actually explain something that’s constantly changing. And because of the time difference and her busy schedule we hadn’t been able to talk for more than fifteen minutes in months. Actually, we hadn’t done it since I went to Korea.

“Do you think he’s worried about you?”

I scoffed and nodded with wide, exaggerated eyes. “All the time. Although...that’s the best thing about Hae. He always thinks about me, or as a matter of fact, everyone else before himself. It’s remarkable in a way, and devastating in another. He needs to think about himself more.”

“Wow, you rarely get to say that about a guy...” my sister remarked. We both laughed, agreeing with one another. “Send him a morning message. He should be quite delighted to get one of those, don’t you think?” I smiled wider.

“Excellent idea.” I reached for my phone and composed a small, loving little message on KakaoTalk with a heart to finish it off. I sent it and put the phone on the night table, ready to wait for at least an hour until he replied. As always, Donghae proves me wrong and replies within five minutes.

“Gee, he’s fast!” my sister exclaims when the phone vibrates. I giggle and pick it up. “What did he write?” she asked curiously. I opened the message, quickly reading it and having my cheeks hurting due to the large smile.

“He wrote that he misses me, that he hopes the weather in England is good despite what his iPhone is telling him...” I made a pause to let my sister giggle about that joke. “He wants me to say hi to the rest of the family and he hopes that I’ll return safely and that I’ll think about him even if I’m busy. Followed by his ‘I love you’-quote of the day with a heart.”

“His ‘quote of the day’? He writes something new every day?” my sister asked in disbelief.

“Only when I’m away.”

“Oh, tell me what it was!” she demanded. “Then we should sleep because we have lots to of hanging out to do tomorrow!”

I chuckled and nodded. “He wrote: ‘I loved you then, I love you now, I’ll love you tomorrow and I’ll love you forever.’ Good night, my princess.” I looked over at my sister who looked like she was going to explode out of cuteness overload. She had her hands by and tried to suffocate the obvious squeal that was forming in .

“Oh my God! He’s so sweet!!!” she finally burst. “If he writes that every morning then I only have one thing to tell you!”

“If it is that I should keep him forever, then you can stop worrying. I’m never letting him go.” I winked at her. She grinned. I placed the phone back down on the night table and snuggled down my face in the pillow, pulling the warm sheets over my whole body. “Shall we sleep now, dear sister?”

“Sounds good,” Sophia replied and turned off the lights. She crawled down under her sheets as well, yawning on the way. “Good night, sweetheart. Love you!”

“Love you too. Good night,” I answered. I closed my eyes and felt excited about spending the coming days with my family. Of course, everything would’ve been a lot better if I had Donghae’s protective arms around me and he’d been able to spend the days with me here, but all in life cannot go the way you want it. I took a last peek around the room. Recognising every little detail and truly feeling at home again, I fell asleep happily.

-

The next morning Sophia woke me and together we prepared breakfast to our parents and ourselves then we went out to spend some well deserved sister-bonding-time. Oxford in the morning was much quieter than Seoul, which, to me, reminded me of the life before I had met Donghae. I thought about it in both a bad and good way; one being how utterly boring my life had been before meeting Donghae and second how little I had needed worry about my privacy, the secrets I used to have. Not that they were plenty but enough to make me perch my lips together in dislike. I knew my parents and Sophia wouldn’t approve of the life I currently lived if they had been able to interfere from the very beginning, but since they hadn’t been there from the beginning, they had no say in the matter any longer. “I’ve missed Oxford,” my sister said, interrupting my thoughts.

I nodded in agreement, “Yes. I’ve missed it too. But Sophia, you must come with me to Seoul sometime! You’ll love it. It’s the most beautiful city that I’ve ever been to and I don’t even like big cities the way you do. Donghae can give you a tour around, he knows the city super well!” Sophia smiled.

“Sure. I’ll come. When I’ve got money, which is likely I won’t have in a while. The studies cost more than I’ve expected.”

“Mm, I know the feeling. I’m living on the savings from the job I had before. Good thing my apartment wasn’t that expensive.”

“Why aren’t you working?” Sophia asked. At first I shrugged, even though I knew perfectly well why I couldn’t work any longer.

“It has partly to do with school... and I have the acting job that’s starting in January, as soon as I get back to Seoul.” Sophia tilted her head to the side, eyeing me in a way I remembered she used on me when I was little and she wanted to get the whole truth out of me. “Fine. It’s because of Hae. Since we went official the fans haven’t really allowed it, that’s why I’m not working. For my own safety.”

“Aha... I’m guessing Donghae had a word in it too, had he not?”

“Actually, it was his idea. Or well his decision. Anyway, tell me about your life now! What have you been up to and how’s it going with Timothy.” My sister smiled and began telling me all about the few last months that she and I hadn’t talked. It amazed me how much I’d missed in her life, though it hardly surprised me. Sophia and I minced down the main road before we returned back home. Our mother was in the middle of planning the Christmas Day’s brunch that traditionally was held at the Thompson’s. It felt relieving to be familiar with the English dishes, rather than being a stranger to them like I’d been to Korean dishes.

“Oh, hello you two. Have you taken a walk?” our mother asked.

“Yep! We have a lot of catching up to do,” Sophia replied. I chuckled.

“Mum, would it be all right if I made a call to Donghae? I think he’s awake still...”

“Of course dear. Tell him hi from me.”

“And me!” Sophia cut in. I nodded and skipped inside our bedroom. I lay on the bed, placed the laptop in front and propped myself up on my elbows. I sent a message on KakaoTalk to Donghae, telling him that he should log onto Skype if he was still awake. Within a couple of minutes the answer from Donghae came. Sadly, he was just about to go to bed so we couldn’t talk. “Was he sleeping?” Sophia, who just came in, asked.

“Yeah. I wrote him a poem so he was pleased anyway haha!” Sophia laughed.

“What did you write?”

“A silly little thing. Nothing that would give me the Noble Price in literature,” I joked. Sophia burst out in laughter. She had always been easily amused. I closed the laptop and sent ‘I love you’ to Donghae.

“Do you often say ‘I love you’?”

I looked at my sister and smiled. “Every single day! And every hour... every minute... sometimes more often than that... I don’t really need a reason to say it and there’s no reason to not say it either.” Sophia took a moment to stare at me like I was crazy then hit my head.

“Stop being cheesy and tell me the truth,” she demanded playfully. I grabbed the nearest pillow in case my answer would set her off into a pillow fight.

“I tell him I love him whenever I see his beautiful face and the wonderful smile that makes my heart beat so fast that I worry it’ll one day flat-line!” I screamed out.

“Okay that’s it cheeseball! I’m going to get you!” My sister threw herself over me, hitting the pillow I covered my body with. Our laughter filled the room as we engaged into serious pillow fighting, both equally amused by the fact that we were acting like when I was five and Sophia was nine. How I miss these times with my sister...

Hello dear readers! I have a question for you~ Would you like that I wrote New Year's Eve alone or do you want to me to write Christmas Day as well? Please leave your opinions in the comment section bellow and I shall consider both options! ^^ Hope you enjoyed this chapter. See you soon! Love you~