Ally wasn’t sure what awoken her first, the cry of surprise, the loud complaining and yelling, or the slamming of the door, but it caused Ally’s eyes to flutter open and yawn. It took a moment of her lying with her eyes shut to realize she wasn’t in her room.

            “That’s right. I fell asleep in Changmin’s room last night,” Ally thought to herself, then frowned in frustration. “That jerk said he’d send me back to my room. He never did.” She was about to voice her thoughts to him, and it was then when she felt what had caused the yelling she had woken up to.

            Changmin and Ally were extremely close. Extremely. It looked as though Changmin had at one point had a tight grasp around Ally’s waist, yet he had let go and his hand was resting on her bare skin, just under her shirt. His other arm was right under his head, griping onto Ally’s hand tightly in his own. His face was just inches away from Ally’s. She wasn’t much better. She was holding onto Changmin’s shirt, her head buried into his chest. Her other hand seemed to be holding his back gently. One of her legs was lying over Changmin’s waist, and the other was in a tangled mess with Changmin’s leg. Somehow, they had both moved around in their sleep enough to end up like… that.

            “Then who was yelling?” Ally thought to herself, trying to remember the voice. It took a few moments, but then she groaned softly, realizing that the voice belonged to none other than 2AM’s maknae, Jinwoon. Then, the words he said vaguely began to put together until she had a sentence.

            “What did hyung tell you last night? Kwon will be angry.”

            Ally groaned again, realizing that they had probably gotten Changmin in trouble. With what, she wasn’t sure.

            Her multiple groans must have woken Changmin up, because his eyes began to blink open. Ally, in a panic, closed her eyes and pretended to be sleeping, attempting to be as still as possible. Changmin fell for it momentarily, not moving although Ally could tell he had woken up. He quickly, yet carefully, removed his hand from Ally’s waist and released her hand from his and from around his shirt. Ally knew that she would have woken up by now, and wanted Changmin to really think she had been sleeping. So when Changmin went and began to remove her leg from his, Ally’s eyes shot open and Changmin froze. Ally looked down at their legs tangled together, and then back up to Changmin’s eyes with a glare on her face.

            “Hey. You ert!” Ally jumped up quickly and Changmin flinched away from her, but not fast enough as Ally grabbed a pillow and began whacking Changmin with it. “You were going to touch me while I was sleeping and then in the morning leave like nothing happened? You jerk!” Changmin, for the first time since she met him, was at a loss for words as Ally attacked him with the pillow. After a moment of just taking the hits, he reached around her and grabbed his own pillow and hit her back.

            “You were the one holding onto me for dear life. I didn’t do anything to you. Maybe I moved in my sleep. I’m not a ert!” he yelled in return, whacking her pillow with his own, causing her to lose her grip and send the pillow on the other side of the bed. As soon as Ally lunged for it, Changmin began hitting her unprotected body with his weapon of choice. “You were holding my shirt, my hand, and you had your leg on mine. I had my arm on you in my sleep. You’re the ert.” Ally squealed as Changmin pummeled the pillow at her, reaching blindly for her own pillow until she grabbed hold of it, blocking her body with the fluffy object as much as she possibly could.

            “Like your arm wasn’t holding onto mine. Please. Get a life if you have nothing better to do than blame me for your mistakes!” Ally managed to call out to Changmin, taking pauses as he hit her with the pillow. He took this moment to lunge at her at full force, holding his pillow out in front of him. He knocked Ally down on her back and fell into a kneeling position at the foot. Ally sat up simultaneously with Changmin, who was picking his head up and straightening his back. This left Changmin sitting between her legs and their heads come dangerously close to crashing into each other. Ally stared at him, surprised, and Changmin’s face was unreadable. As he didn’t pull away, Ally’s cheeks flared and she avoided his gaze. This made Changmin move, laughing.

            “Hey. Make sure your face doesn’t get burnt permanently like that,” Changmin snickered, throwing his pillow gently to Ally and leaving the room.

            The rest of the morning was tense and awkward. At breakfast, Jo Kwon was shooting daggers across the table to Changmin, who was trying to ignore him. Seulong seemed amused, looking up occasionally and raising his eyebrows in speculation, to which Changmin scowled at. Jinwoon seemed nervous, looking from all three of them back and forth as if waiting for some type of confrontation. Ally was sitting as far away from Changmin as possible, and purposely kept quiet the whole meal.

            “What happened with you and Changmin?” Cindy asked, and Ally’s head whipped up as she let out a high-pitched squeak.

            “What do you mean? Nothing happened! Why would you think that?” she responded nervously, her voice stuttering as she spoke. Ally felt the familiar pink creeping up to her cheeks again, and she could have sworn she saw Changmin shake his head out of the corner of her eye.

            “You two aren’t fighting. I just wanted to know if you made up.” Cindy looked surprised, and Ally pouted.

            “Sorry. I’m a little tired. I didn’t sleep well last night.” Jo Kwon coughed from across the table, and Ally didn’t explain further.

            “Did you have a nightmare?” her roommate asked, and Ally nodded eagerly.

            “Yes. Then I heard noises and went downstairs. When I went back to bed, it was really uncomfortable for some reason. I was still a little scared, too.” All of a sudden, Jo Kwon’s voice broke Ally’s train of thought as he stood up with a loud sigh.

            “That was really good, everyone. Let’s go play some karaoke!” Jo Kwon said, grinning to the table. Many people followed him into the kitchen. It only took a minute for the table to be empty besides Ally, Changmin, Jinwoon, and Seulong. They stared at her awkwardly for a few seconds of silence before Ally realized they wanted her to leave. She quickly picked up her plate walked into the kitchen, cleaning everything up.

            When she walked over to where everyone was singing karaoke, Ally was nervous Jo Kwon was angry with her. She could tell he was upset with Changmin but she obviously was the cause of this. She didn’t want one of her top biases of all time hating her!

            But, to Ally’s surprise (and happiness), Jo Kwon genuinely smiled to her and scooted over on the couch, patting the spot next to him as if inviting Ally to sit. She did, and he lightly squeezed her shoulder with the wink of his eye before returning to watching the performances going on. Ally sighed, thankful he wasn’t angry with her, but still feeling nervous. What was going on?

            Throughout the rest of the day, Ally occasionally went over to Changmin and attempted to pick fights with him, saying some teasing comment that would usually set him off. At first, his face would twist and he would open his mouth to speak, but he would never say anything. He’d just close his mouth, shake his head, and then smile. Smile. Then, he’d calmly walk away from her.  It wasn’t like she didn’t have anything else to do, but knowing he was purposely ignoring her was driving Ally insane. It went so far that Ally had stopped using rude comments to get Changmin to speak to her and started using aegyo. She went full out, gripping his shirt, pouting, crying “oppa” as cutely as she could muster. This seemed to have more of an effect, Changmin looking surprised before smirking, and then he would leave like he always did. Even if they were the only two in the room, he would shuffle away from Ally like she was the plague.

            “Do I smell?” Ally vented to Ezabel. “Am I just so ugly that he can’t stand me? Does he think I’m just too annoying to deal with?” She racked off countless amounts of reasons for why Changmin could possibly be ignoring her. “Maybe my hair is greasy. Oh no, that would be horrible. Do I have a bad sense in fashion? Maybe he really thinks Jinwoon is my favorite. What if he wants to leave me to Jinwoon? Or maybe he’s angry that we’re not winning in the games and blames it on me? Or maybe-…”

            “You really sound like you are talking about someone you have a huge crush on, and not 2AM’s Changmin,” Ezabel cut Ally off, obviously trying to hold back her laughter. Ally sighed, plopping down her head into her arms that were resting on her towel. She was currently lying on her stomach on the beach with Ezabel lying next to her, both covered by a large beach umbrella as the others were in the water.

            “Hey, I’m not hiding the fact that I had a huge crush on Changmin before coming here. Well, okay, I’m hiding it from Changmin himself but that’s it!” Ally retorted quickly, to which Ezabel laughed.

            “You HAD a crush on him? Past tense?”

            “Well, since we’ve been here together and I’ve spoken to him…” Ally paused, trying to find the right words. “It’s more real. Meaning, the image of him. I like him, the ‘in real life’ version of him, but not like that, really. It’s more… I want to get to know him. And he was kind-of becoming my friend. I don’t have a lot of friends, and making a new friend is kind-of a big deal to me. I don’t want to scare him off. And you know…”

            “I get it,” Ezabel replied with a laugh. “You’re babbling on so much. Does this mean you’re lying and you really do have a crush on him?”

            “No!” Ally insisted, sitting up quickly, and Ezabel put her hands up, laughing.

            “I’m kidding. Don’t get so defensive. It’s okay.” Ally lied back down on the towel with a sigh.

            “I really only have three friends on this island. You, Cindy, and almost Changmin. Almost. Well, used to be almost. Now it’s BLEH!” Ally plopped her head down again and groaned. “It’s not fair! Why am I so unlucky?” She began kicking her arms and punching her fists into the sand, mimicking a young child having a temper tantrum. When she picked her head up again, Ezabel was looking at her with a “WTF was that?” face. The two stared at each other in silence for a moment before bursting out laughing.

            “Sorry,” Ally apologized. “I guess people here don’t get how weird I am yet.” She giggled, sitting up and wrapping her arms around her knees before gasping, letting out a soft squeal. “I just thought of the most genius idea to get Changmin to talk to me again.”

            “What?”

            “So I tried picking a fight, and then I tried aegyo. What if… I try them together?” Ally grinned eagerly while Ezabel smacked herself on the forehead.

            “Are you serious?” Ally didn’t seem to notice her obvious dislike of the idea.

            “It’s genius, I tell you! Maybe when he sees me going into the water for him and then trying to get his attention he’ll realize he just needs to talk to me!” Ally cried out, jumping up and running into the water.

            “Wait! Don’t go in!” Ezabel called after Ally, “You know how creepy the ocean is!” Ally dismissed her with her hand and continued running. Trying to block out all of the anxiety pulsing through her thoughts, she plunged into the water, faking a girlish giggle as she did so. Ignoring the freezing temperatures, she dunked her head in until she was completely soaked, so at least it looked like she had been in there for some time. With that, she scooted through people until she got to Changmin.

            “Changmin oppa~!” Ally cried out, jumping up in front of Changmin with her arms in the air. “Hi! The water is cold today, right?” Changmin didn’t answer, so Ally began poking his upper arm. “Hey, oppa… Your arms look really small. No, like really small!” She giggled and puffed out her cheeks in thought, and continued speaking using her best aegyo. “I remembered them bigger. Oppa, have you been working out recently? No, right?” Changmin shifted his arm away from her, a frown furrowing his eyebrows but a tiny smirk on his lips. He said nothing, but shook his head. That’s when she pouted and moved closer to Changmin, looking up at him with big, blinking eyes. “You like me, right?” Changmin coughed in surprise and began choking on the air he had just been breathing in, causing Ally’s eyes to go wide as she reached over and began slapping his back. “Breathe! Breathe! How can someone choke on air, honestly?” she cried out in an annoyed tone, completely forgetting about her aegyo and hitting Changmin much harder than necessary. He grabbed her arm and pulled Ally away from him, laughing.

            Changmin rolled his neck and assured those that had noticed him coughing that he was fine. He began rubbing his back, and slowly pulled his tank top over his head. Ally froze, her eyes widening. Sure, she had seen Changmin shirtless before, even in person, but it was stunning. Although she completely made up that his arms were smaller, she wished she could take it back once she saw how stunning his body was. He turned his back to Ally, causing her to stare more. She bit her lower lip, staring at Changmin’s toned back. She would be one of the first to announce she was completely in love with men’s backs, and Changmin’s was one of the best.

            “Are there slap marks on my back?” he asked a nearby fan who looked about ready to faint from the sight of Changmin shirtless.

            “Y-yes…” she stuttered, covering with her hand. She stared at awe at the sight in front of her while Changmin was either oblivious or purposely not acknowledging it.

            “Ah, would you mind showing me? It’s okay, you can touch!” Changmin replied, chuckling cheekily. This was when Ally covered , trying not to giggle like a fangirl. She tried to look away, but Changmin was standing there wet and shirtless in front of her. It was hard to ignore.

            Ally didn’t even notice that there were waves until she ducked underwater to avoid one. She was so busy trying to get Changmin to talk to her that she must have completely missed them. Waves scared her, but Changmin had just turned back to face her as the other girl left laughing and blushing. She couldn’t back down now, not when it looked like Changmin was going to say something to her!

            “I asked you if you liked me,” Ally spoke, trying to keep her forced cute-voice steady. Changmin looked away, and Ally noticed his ears turning red. “I thought you would like being my friend. You’re my favorite idol…” Ally stopped speaking as her eyes widened and Changmin looked at her confused. Without saying a word, Ally dunked her head underwater as she gripped her foot in agony. She pulled at her foot a bit before coming back up as Changmin gripped her arm lightly.

            “A crab bit my foot!” Ally wailed, tears already forming in her eyes, though they were unnoticeable.

            “Pinched,” Changmin corrected, and Ally was too freaked out to realize he had just spoken to her.

            “Shut up!” she cried out, holding her foot and hopping around in the waist deep water. She turned her back to Changmin and bit her lip, trying to calm herself.

            Well, the ocean had other plans. Without warning, a large wave grew and crashed right into the unsuspecting Ally. Changmin’s grip on her arm was too loose, and she slipped right through him as the wave pushed her underwater and towards the shore. Ally was in a sheer panic, flailing her body around as she felt her skin get scraped against the rough sand. She kicked her legs and pumped her arms as quickly as she could, trying to find her way out of the water. When she finally was able to stand up, she pushed right off her legs into another wave, not even getting the chance to take a breath. The white wave pushed Ally back down and tossed her around, making her unsure which way was up and which way was down. She felt herself getting dizzy, not only from the wave but from the terror that she felt. She began thinking she was about to die. That was it. She would never get out and just drown on IAM Island. Just as she was beginning to lose hope and black out, an arm gripped around Ally’s waist and hoisted her out of the water. The arms held her tightly as the person who they were attached to pulled her up so they had a tight grip on her. Ally’s eyes were shut, still feeling dizzy. She could vaguely hear voices, but found it difficult to understand what was going on or what just happened. The arms placed her down onto the dry sand, where she assumed was away from the deadly (in her opinion) ocean, and lightly tapped her cheeks. She couldn’t make out the voice, and groaned as the person kept slapping her cheek. When she groaned, they started slapping harder until it began to sting. Ally groaned again, louder this time, and placed her hand over the person’s wrist. With her eyes shut, she took deep breaths, trying to make out the voices that were speaking to her.

            “I told her not to go into the ocean. She hates the ocean!” Ally heard a girl say in a worried tone. Ally immediately recognized it as Ezabel, who was the only person who had told her not to go in.

            “Why was she in the water?” A male voice responded, and Ally squinted her shut eyes as she tried to make it out. “If she doesn’t like it she shouldn’t go in.” Ally gripped the wrist she was holding onto tighter and opened her eyes as she realized who had rescued her. She blinked a few times, trying to get used to the light again. She was looking into the eyes of Ezabel, Cindy, Seulong, and of course, Changmin. Ally blinked blankly a few times as her gaze shifted over their faces.

            “Are you okay?” Changmin’s voice broke the silence, and this is what pushed Ally over the edge. Her lower lip began to quiver and her breaths began to get shaky. Her eyes and nose got red and the sniffles started. She was trying hard not to burst out into sobs, but she couldn’t hold back the tears pouring from her eyes and the sniffles coming from her nose. Changmin must have noticed the sobs Ally was desperately trying to hold back, because he told the others he would take her inside and clean her up. Ally, not knowing what he meant by that, held her head up slightly to look down at herself. She had sand everywhere and her legs were scraped up from the sand. Not only that, but she was bleeding a lot from where the crab had pinched her foot. When she put her head back against the sand, she saw Changmin whispering to the others. When he saw her looking, he quickly scooped her up into his arms and began carrying her down the beach towards the resort as quiet whimpers began to escape Ally’s lips. Changmin sighed softly and looked down at her with a scrunched up face. Ally closed her eyes tightly, trying hard to shake the fear off of her, but no matter how hard she tried she still felt like she was dying.

            Changmin brought her into the resort, for once not worrying that they were both covered in sand. Ally leaned her head against him as she started feeling dizzy again. This was when she noticed he was still shirtless. She bit her lower lip, her whimpers stopping momentarily as she realized she was lying against the bare chest of the Lee Changmin. Almost a dream come true. Almost.

            Changmin hurried through the halls until the two reached one of the bathrooms. While shifting all of Ally’s weight into one arm, he leaned down and picked up a bathroom stool, placing it in the shower. Then, he gently sat Ally down on the stool and positioned her so she was leaning against the wall.

            “Can I turn on the water?” he asked, and Ally nodded slowly, smiling ever-so-slightly.

            “What?” he asked as he turned the shower on, the water hitting Ally and washing away the sand.

            “You spoke to me,” she said, just loud enough to be heard over the running water. Changmin smiled in return.

            “I spoke to you twice before. You just didn’t notice.” He paused and watched as Ally’s smile faded and she just sat on the chair, looking horribly pitiful. “You look pathetic,” he said, tilting his head as he watched Ally. She sniffled again, her face scrunching up as she tried not to cry. “You can cry if you want,” Changmin said quietly, noticing her obvious resistance to the sobs threatening to take over her body. Well, this was enough of an invitation for Ally, who immediately crashed into sobs that shook her whole body, a slew of words coming out of in a mumbled babble that Changmin couldn’t understand.

            “Speak slower!” Changmin complained. Even at a moment like that, he still nagged her. “I can’t understand you.”

            “I don’t have friends back home,” Ally wailed, and Changmin was caught off guard as he watched her blankly, confused at the sudden outburst. “When I came here, I was excited to make friends, but no one really likes me all that much here, either. I made two friends during these days, and I almost made a third. I was really happy because I really liked this person, but they stopped talking to me.” Ally took a break to catch her breath and cry a little more before continuing. “I don’t want to be alone and lose more people again. I don’t understand.” Ally continued crying loudly, wrapping her arms around herself as she tilted her head towards her lap. “I hate the water, too. The ocean. I hate it. I hate crabs and I hate waves and I thought I was dying. I feel like I’m dying.”

            Changmin said nothing, but while Ally was busy sobbing to herself, Changmin had soundlessly stepped into the shower with her and placed a hand on her head. He then sat on the edge of the tub, keeping a comforting hand on her soaking head of hair.

            “It’s okay,” he said as Ally cried, lightly rubbing her head. “I’m here now, so please don’t cry anymore, okay?” Ally choked on her breath as she tried to reply and Changmin pulled her head gently so it was leaning against his arm, staying silent, but the message was heard loud and clear. Slowly but surely, Ally started feeling less like she was dying and more like she was now living for the first time.