Tae Il dragged me to no rae bang one night.  I hated no rae bang for a few reasons.  One, I can’t sing to save my life.  Two, actually that’s it.  I can’t sing so I don’t want to watch other people get drunk and think they can.  But no rae bang with an actual singer was a different story.

            I made Tae Il serenade me for an hour.  It was beautiful.

            “Are you busy tomorrow?” he asked as he tugged the bill of his cap lower over his face as we exited the no rae bang place.

            I giggled.  “When am I ever busy on Sundays?” I joked.

            He laughed lightly as his hand casually found mine.  As it always did when we walked side by side.  It was kind of cold out.  As his fingers closed around my hand, he shoved his hands into his hoodie pockets.  His hand was warm and his pocket was soft.

            He sniffed and looked down at his feet.  “Can we…go back to your apartment then?  I don’t have a schedule at all tomorrow until later in the evening, when we have to film the new CF.”

            “You want to come home with me, Tae Il?” I asked in a low, seductive voice just to see him blush.

            “Well, I-I-”

            I cracked up and elbowed him lightly.  “Why do you feel the need to still ask if you can come to my apartment?”  You know I always want you with me, I thought just out of spite when that damn voice of reality told me I shouldn’t let him come with me.

            He let out a nervous chuckle and elbowed me back, but didn’t say anything.

            Just as I was about to tap in my key code, Tae Il let out a weird croaking noise.  I almost jumped out of my skin.  I turned and looked at him, eyebrows almost into my hair line.

            “What’s the matter?” I asked.

            “P-Please don’t get mad,” he choked out.

            “Why?”

            “Because I don’t want you to get mad at me.”

            I laughed a little and rolled my eyes.  “Right.  But why would I be mad at you?”

            “Because I kind of…”  He fidgeted a little and sighed.  “I gave the members your key code and asked them to set something up for us tonight,” he blurted out almost too fast for me to understand.  “I’m sorry, please don’t be mad!”

            The corners of my mouth curled up.  “Why would I be mad at that?”

            He looked at me, his eyes still filled with uncertainty.  “Because I gave out your key code?”

            “To your band mates.  You didn’t scrawl it with my address on the stall in a bathroom at a bar,” I laughed, turning and ticking off the key code.  The door beeped and I practically kicked it open.  Grabbing his sleeve, I dragged him in behind me, excited to see what he was talking about.

            I tripped out of my shoes, letting go of his sleeve only when he took too long to take off his sneakers.  Stopping in the tiny entry way to the open area of my little studio, I almost cried.

            Colored Christmas lights were hung around the perimeter of the ceiling and across the top of the window that filled almost one entire wall in my apartment.  Glittery plastic snowflakes were strung up and hanging down a foot or two from the ceiling.

            “Oh, good, they listened.  I told them to leave the TV on,” Tae Il said from behind me.  He peeked around my shoulder to look at my face. 

            “What’s all this?” I asked, just above a whisper.

            “You hate it,” he said instead.

            “I love it.  I just don’t know what it is.”

            “Well, I remember once you saying that you wished it would snow more in Seoul since the winters are just kind of freezing and usually not the right temperature for snow.  It’s not too far into winter yet, but I doubt it will snow much this year, so I brought the snow to you.”

            “You remember me telling you that I liked snow?” I whispered incredulously.

            His smile was faltering.  “I remember everything you tell me.”

            I couldn’t breathe.  Guys aren’t like this in real life.  They’re jerks.  They don’t listen.  They don’t care.  They don’t have their best friends break into your apartment to decorate it all wintery because, one time, a million conversations ago you offhandedly blurted out that you liked snow.

            “It’s great, Tae Il.  I love it.”

            I could see out of the corner of my eye as I still stared amazed around my little apartment that his smile came back stronger.  “It’s been two months since I kind of sort of didn’t ask you to be my girlfriend,” he stated with a nod.  Then he bit his bottom lip real quick.  “I would have done it last month, but I chickened out.  Jae Hyo and Kyung said I had no spine and that I needed to man up, but when Ji Ho called me a girl, I suddenly found the courage to come up with an idea like this.”  I finally looked at him and couldn’t help laughing a little.

            “That wasn’t very nice of them,” I giggled.

            He shrugged.  “Yu Kwon, Min Hyuck, and maknae are the only ones who are going to get good Christmas presents this year.”  I smiled.

            “Are you going to stay tonight then?”

            He nodded.  “If you want me to.”  I shoved him playfully.  “I had the guys leave some DVDs from the dorm here.  Horror movies and action flicks mostly, but I can go out and get some other ones if you don’t like them.”  He pointed to the pile of movies I hadn’t noticed on the floor next to my TV.

            I pushed him into the closet door which happened to be the closest wall to where we stood.  His eyes widened slightly in surprise when I pressed my body against his, eyeing him hungrily.

            Sliding my arms around his neck, I knocked his cap off his head and kissed along his jaw to his ear.  “I don’t want to watch movies,” I purred.     

            “O-o-o-”  His chest raised and fell with the aggravated sigh he gave.  “Ok,” he began calmly.  “We don’t have to.  What do you want to do?”  I switched sides and began kissing the other side of his face, curling one of my legs around one of his and pushing my hips more into his waist.  “We-we can…do that if you want.”  I breathed a laugh into his ear liking the way it made him shiver.  “I wasn’t going to r-rush you or insist or…even mention it actually, but-but if you want to…”

            Two months wasn’t that long, but I really…two months.  Two months.  Two months.  I’d know him, what, almost four months then.  These past two months though.

           Tae Il’s eyes set on me, wide and unblinking, when I ripped away from him, stumbling back a few feet.

            “Wait,” was all I could say before I darted into the bathroom.

            Once locked safely inside my closet sized bathroom, I the faucet to drown out any noises I made.  I practically climbed up the sink to look into my nose in the mirror on the wall. 

            Two months.  How many nose bleeds had I had these past two months that I was Tae Il’s girlfriend?   I coughed into my hand.  Nothing.  I coughed again, harder.  Still nothing.

            I hadn’t started coughing up blood again, but I’d had quite a few nose bleeds since that first one after we’d kissed for the first time.  Thankfully, he’d never seen one.  The night terrors were feeling more intense lately and coming more frequently.  He’d googled a reason why, but came up empty handed.  I had no lies for him.  I just said that I went through phases.  They come and go.  Get more frequent and less frequent.

            I grabbed some toilet paper and blew my nose lightly.  No blood.  I blew it again.  Still no blood.  Once more.  There was nothing in my nose so if I had a nose bleed now it was from blowing too hard.

            But there was nothing.  I put my face right up to the mirror and pulled my bottom eyelids down.  Not red.  I looked fine.  I felt fine.  But you’re not fine.