You buried your face under the pillows when the exploding laughter reached your ears again. You couldn’t help but groan, feeling highly bothered by this excessive amount of noise coming from the living room. You got it, really you did. He lived together with s in a dorm and he enjoyed spending time with them at night. Especially now that they were so excited for their comeback. Which you showed respect for. In fact, you always understood how important Jiho’s work was and how devoted he was too it. And you really did like the guys. But it was currently 3am and you had to work tomorrow… It was about time they would shut up. And no matter how hard you disliked being the party-pooper, you knew you had no choice.  

“Jagiya.” You started, sleepily entering the living room. Jihoon was showing an excellent example of shadowboxing while having candy stuffed under his lip to make it look like gum shields. The guys were laughing loudly yet again, Jiho – of course – being the loudest of all of them as he rolled over onto his back. Naturally it was nice to see him have fun like this. There was something about Jiho smiling and laughing that made you feel warm inside. Through all the hardships of the past months you had feared you would never see that smile again, but there it was…. Lately everything had been good again and you couldn’t be happier. That is… you would rather like it to get some sleep tonight. “Jiho!” you urged, this time raising your voice more to make them hear you. Everyone stopped laughing instantly; eyeing you with a look of guilt on their face… Well, everyone except for the idiot you were dating. He was still giggling to himself and slapping his hand to the floor while doing so. “Ya! Woo Jiho!” you spoke, the tone of your voice enough to make him sit up straight right away. “Oh! Jagiya! I thought you were sleeping…” he spoke, his eyes big and confused. You sighed. “I would if I could, but your hysterical laughter is sort of preventing me from doing so.” Your dry reply sounded, making the members look down in shame.

“Aaah… Were we that loud? I’m sorry baby, we’re just really excited.” He started, getting up and coming your way. “Cookie?” he said, offering you the box of cookies that had been on the coffee table just now. While doing so, he looked at you with those puppy-eyes of him, making your heart falter once more at the sight of it. He knew all too well what that look did to you. “Fine.” You said, quickly grabbing one and ignoring the satisfied look he was giving you. “Just try to be a little bit quieter okay; I need to be awake tomorrow. Goodnight guys.” You sighed before stalking off and leaving them to their ‘party’.

The next morning felt like you had been hibernating for months without seeing the sun. With squinted eyes and messy hair you dragged yourself over to the dorm’s kitchen, grabbing some milk and pouring it into a glass. “Morning, my beautiful girl.” Jiho said. You had felt his arms slither around your waist to pull you into a back hug before you even heard his voice. You ‘hmm-ed’ slightly, not feeling the need to reply. After all, needless to say that even after your small intervention there had still been plenty of noise coming to your bedroom. Which also gave you plenty of time to get more frustrated about the whole situation. And to start thinking about how different it could be. Sure, you could stay at your own apartment instead of sleeping at Jiho’s place quite often. But you both hated the thought of not seeing each other often. And he didn’t like the idea of leaving the guys alone right now either. “Still sleepy? Didn’t you sleep well? You seemed to be vast asleep when I came to bed.” Jiho started to mumbled when you hardly reacted to his actions. Normally you would mold yourself to the shape of his body against yours. You would melt away in the warm hug, only to turn around after a little while and kiss him good morning. Now, you remained frozen as you stared at the empty glass in front of you. Little did he know he just gave you the perfect intro to the series of complaints you were about to utter. “Vast asleep?” You said, turning around and preparing yourself.

“In case you failed to notice through your giggles and puppy-eyed cuteness, I was hardly vast asleep last night. Sure, after the extreme exhaustion kicked in I probably fell asleep… Like at 4 or 5 am maybe. Which is, in case you didn’t notice yet, about two hours ago. So no, I didn’t sleep well. And yes, I am still sleepy.” You snapped at him, folding your arms over each other. He had quickly removed his hands from your waist the moment he knew he was in for trouble. But now he was staring at you while nervously biting his lower lip. You could see he was having an inner conflict about this, which bothered you since you knew that in the end, he’d say what he want to say. Partly you appreciated this about Jiho. He wasn’t one to keep his opinion for himself and he was always honest about what he thought or how he felt. Logically this could get troublesome when his opinion didn’t agree with yours. Not that you always wanted him to blindly agree, but there were times he’d better kept his mouth shut and let you rage for a bit. Well, that wouldn’t happen of course. “I also got up just now and I’m not that tired.” Jiho spoke. There you had it.

“Well, not everyone’s happy with two hours of sleep, okay?” you grumbled, moving away from him and heading back to your room. “Aw, come on baby! You know me and the guys don’t mean it like that, okay? We will be quiet tonight!” Jiho said, running after you and jumping in front of you to make you stop in the hallway. “Please jagiya, don’t be mad at me.” Ah damn, those puppy eyes again. You diverted your eyes from his and tried to ignore how he pulled you closer to his half- body. “I’m not mad Jiho…” you started, feeling your frustration fading, yet you planned on saying what was on your mind. “It’s just that… I love you, I really do. And I want to be with you as much as I can. So that’s why I’m here. But you can’t deny the fact that being here almost every night is also influencing our relationship…” you spoke and continued quickly before he could interrupt. “And I know: the boys are important to you. Heck, they are important to me too. You know I adore them. But living here, sleeping here… It’s obvious we don’t have any privacy. And at least two times a week I can’t get sleep because you guys are noisy. I put up with it because I love you, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t frustrate me.” You said, looking up to meet his dark eyes. You could see understanding in them and knew that he was aware that what you said was the truth. It was easy to see he had also felt bothered by it himself. “Well, if you want some privacy we can stay at your place for the rest of the week.” He spoke, gently rubbing your back. “No, it’s the comeback tomorrow, you need to be here. It’s fine.” You mumbled, knowing you didn’t want to pull him away from this place right now. Sighing, you diverted your eyes, only to feel Jiho’s finger under your chin to pull your eyes back to his. “______…I love you so much. You have no idea how important you are to me. So thank you.” He whispered, lips inching closer to yours.

Instantly the two of you molded together as you kissed. It was as if two pieces of a whole finally found each other again and felt completed. His soft, plump lips glided over yours asking for the entrance that you gladly granted. His hands that had been gently on your back not so long ago, were now groping your behind and pressing you even closer to him. Tongues battling for dominance, your hands in his hair, the building passion between the two of you… “Omo! Oh, I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please do continue!” Jaehyo said as he awkwardly shuffled past the two of you and headed for the kitchen. Of course, by the time the two of you had heard him, you had already separated. After staring at each other in surprise for a moment, you spoke; “See! That’s what I mean!” you groaned, before storming off to the bedroom again.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Oddly enough it turned out both you and Jiho had decided not to bring up the subject anymore. It had been four days now and neither had said a word. You figured he came to the same conclusion as you; what was the point anyway? There wasn’t really a solution you would both be happy with, or at least none you could think of. So for the time being this just had to do. You would make the best of it, right? Shoving aside some of the empty pizza boxes on the kitchen counter, you started to work on dinner for that evening. The guys were still off to some broadcast, or so you thought until Jiho stormed into the kitchen and pulled the knife out of your hands.

“No!” he yelled so loudly that maybe it was good you weren’t holding the knife anymore. You might’ve dropped it on your foot or something… “ ‘No’ what? What are you even doing here? And why did you just stop me from making dinner for you guys?” you asked, staring at him in confusion. “No, I’m not stopping you from making dinner.” He replied, widely smiling at you. “Oh? Well it certainly looks like you did.” You replied sarcastically as you waved your hand towards the knife he was holding. Of course he only smiled wider in reply. “No, I’m just stopping you from making dinner here.” He returned with a mischievous look in his eyes. It made you narrow your eyes at him in suspicion. What was he up to? “Is that so? And where does Mister Woo suggest I make him dinner then? In the living room?” you said, watching him carefully. “Nope, I’ve arranged something better!” he smirked, taking your hand and pulling you to the hallway. Before you knew it you were out of their dorm, heading for the other side of the hall. Soon he stopped in front of another door, swiftly knocking it open and dragging you in. “Here!” Jiho spoke in excitement, pulling you to a halt in the apartment’s kitchen. It was just like their dorm, but a smaller version of it.

Confused and shocked at the same time, you prepared to ask Jiho that one question; what did this mean? Though, before you could do so the other members came out of the other rooms wearing clothes covered in paint and demanded your attention. “______ah! We have everything prepared! The bedroom is painted in the exact same color as your apartment’s bedroom! And we’re about to start on the living room now!” Kyung happily explained. Wait a minute… “But… I…What?” you brought out, still unsure if you were putting the pieces together correctly. Jiho smiled and squeezed your hand to make you look at him. “I bought this apartment for you. Well for us actually. That way we can have our privacy, yet I’m also close to the dorm!” he explained, making your mouth drop open in shock. Oh my god, he actually bought you this place…. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Not kidding at all.” He smirked, pulling you closer to him again. “Aren’t you happy? We can be alone more often… We can have quiet, nice times on our own. All alone in this apartment… just the two of us… Sounds tempting doesn’t it?” he added the last sentence with a whisper, tickling your ear with his hot breath. Yet, the others didn’t seem to miss the tension that suddenly came into the room as Jiho tried to subtly pull you closer. “Oookaaaay, this is our cue, I guess.  Come on guys.” Taeil said, pushing the others out. “Uhm, ______, we can still eat dinner here, right?” Jihoon asked while standing at your new front door. “If you can wait for a little while, yes.” You replied, with a smirk while you felt Jiho’s hands already sliding under your shirt and over the bare skin of your back. “Only a little while? Ah, hyung’s that bad?” he laughed, before quickly closing the door to cover for the paintbrush that flew across the hall.