The day passed to be literally one of the worst days of my life. It was never ending, painfully silent and awkward and even as time passed I didn’t feel any better. By lunch time I felt like I might throw up. Towards the last five minutes of our lunch break I saw the others leaving Joon behind at their kitchen table, still munching on his ramen. Before I even thought about what the hell I was doing I got up and walked over to him. Ignoring the painful blow that shot through my heart at his disgusted glare he gave me, I sat down in front of him. “I do NOT want to talk to you”, he stated.

“You don’t need to talk to me, but I just want to explain the situation to you… please Joon”, I pleaded reaching out to touch his hand that laid dead like on the table. The second my fingers touched his hand he jerked it back, as if I’d shocked him by my touch. Obvious displeasure colouring his features, he drew his hands away under the table. “Don’t touch me”, he spat flushing with momentary anger. Sitting back, I folded my hands on my lap, restraining myself from any temptation. I lapsed into a full blown explanation of myself. Telling him about everything since we met at the bar that night, my experiment and how my mind worked around work and my social life.

Slowly through my explanation I could see his expression softening slightly in understanding and his eyes seemed to go from judging to something like sympathy. When I was done I was almost out of breath and I stared expectantly at him. When he didn’t say anything I started again. “Look I’m not trying to excuse anything I did, I just wanted to explain myself so you could understand at least.”

“It’s okay Ailce… Look I’m not exactly proud of my actions either, although you certainly should have told me… but I can try to understand at least.” , Joon said, most of the hurt gone from his voice now.

Relief spanned my mind, relaxing me for the first time the whole day. “You know what would be good for us to do now?”

“What?”, Joon asked uncertainly.

“Start over. Get to know one another from scratch. Since both of us haven’t really been true to ourselves, we’ll make a deal. From now on we’re ourselves, not trying to be someone else, Okay?”, I suggested with a warm smile.

He smiled instinctively back, but stopped himself after a short silence. “I like it. Deal….Just don’t expect things to be the same from the start.”, he said giving me a slight frown. I nodded in reply.

“Good.”, he said getting up from the table and leaving me with my thoughts. Well that had been… easy… much easier than I expected. He actually listened to me… and tried to understand. Where have you ever heard of a man that listens and at least attempts to understand. I smiled thinking about him. He honestly was a gentleman. And a great friend at that.  A friend that I had slept with though. I cringed as that thought crossed my mind. Yeah things might be pretty awkward for a while.

Joon’s stubbornness lasted only a couple of days. He would talk to me, but we weren’t as friendly as we used to be with each other, probably a result of our little night of passion. I giggled as I thought about that again. Joon had set down a number of rules for our newly formed friendship and the most important condition was that neither of us mention that night for the sake of not making our friendship awkward. Still even if we didn’t talk about it, it was still awkward occasionally. For instance we had been quite flirty and touchy with each other, so much that it had become natural to us and now that we were like this I’d often catch Joon reaching out to me, wanting to hug me, my hair or kiss my forehead. He’d of course realize what he was doing beforehand and slowly retreat his hand, his smile fading. Although this hurt me at first I saw it got harder and harder for him to stay away from me. But as I said this only lasted about a week.

The weeks that followed our “incident” things were pretty much back to normal. Yet it was so much better. I was myself. We became so much closer to each other and were always together during our breaks. Joon was back to his smiling, idiotic self and was happy as I watched him play games with s, laughing his head off at Seungho that attempted to do a y dance with G.O. It was with grateful relief that they had accepted me as their friend too, once again.

“Bathroom break!”, my boss called out. MBLAQ drifted away from the camera’s and scattered around. Joon walked over to me, a big smile plastered on his face. My smile mirrored his as I watched him come closer. “How come you always get to sit on the swivelly chair?”, he asked tauntingly as he came to sit on my lap.

“Because I’m a PD – nim”, I said sticking out my tongue at him. Giggling he leaned back into me and I relaxed against his back leaning my head on his shoulder and wrapping my arms around his waist. We just sat there for a while, closing our eyes and breathing each other in. Mir jumped in front of us suddenly, leaping onto Joon’s lap. “Argh!”  I groaned under combined weight, swivelling the chair from side to side to try and get them off. I succeeded after a while letting them both fall to the floor on either side of my chair. I laughed watching them wrestle on the floor until Seungho and G.O appeared pulling them apart, jokingly. They drifted off one by one to continue their filming, but Mir stayed behind lounging across my desk and fiddling with my fluffy pen. “You know I think we should have you over some night… like make dinner for you or something… It would be fun were all friends and you’re here most of the time anyway. “, Mir suggested a happy smile on his childlike face.

“That would be great!”,  I squealed excitedly. “I’d love cooking for you guys too, since it seems the only thing you have in your kitchen is ramen.”

He laughed, not denying the comment either. “How about tonight?”, he asked eagerly.

“Sure”, I smiled at him, ruffling his wavy hair. He was like a little kid to me, so childlike and playful all the time, he really knew how to make any situation an enjoyable one. He was the first one of the members to forget about the whole incident with Joon. To him it didn’t matter, I was his friend. “I’ll just stop by my apartment after work and come back here again.”

By the time I reached my apartment I had figured out what I wanted to make them and what ingredients I needed. Lucky enough I had most of it in my fridge and the rest I would get from them. A strange fluttering feeling swam in my stomach at the thought of cooking for them… or more precisely the thought of cooking for Joon. Of course I’ve made him lunch in his kitchen multiple times, but this was new to me. I’ve never been at their home at night… well except for that night. A blush crawled along cheeks when memories flashed through my mind. A sigh escaped my lips as I poked through my fridge in search for the needed ingredients. I could clearly remember my feelings for Joon at that time. His casual touches and heartwarming friendship had left a tugging feeling at my heart, making me realize I had started to like him. But after that night I felt like I’d ruined everything and we had to start over anyway. I figured that my feelings for him had just subsided since things were somehow different, but still he managed to make me fall for him again. A painful stab jolted through my heart when I fully noticed the deep longing I had for him in my heart. When did all this start up again?! I didn’t even know I felt like this until now. I got a complete fright when I felt a warm tear roll down my cheek. I wiped at it furiously, shocked and frustrated that I was feeling so emotional just thinking about my feelings for Joon. I hated feeling this…weak. And even if thinking about him did make me cry, my heart still fluttered in excitement knowing that I would see him in a while again. Before I started getting all teared up again, I got my things together grabbed the shopping bags full of food and headed to my car. Setting my bags down to free my hands I pressed the buzzer at their apartment building. I heard Mir’s booming laughter through the intercom before he greeted me happily and buzzed me up.

“Hey!”, Mir greeted bounding down the stairs to help me with the bags. An automatic smile spread across my lips as it usually did when I saw Mir’s smiling, childlike face. It was a strange sight to see the dorm at night. There were none of the usual cameras, nor ten or more people running around and my swivelling chair had been put away for the day. Now it was just their home. Ignoring the fluttering I felt in my stomach I walked over to the kitchen and put my things down. Even the kitchen looked different in the dim glow of the soft lights.  “Alice?!”

I reacted from the sound of my name called from his voice. My mouth felt dry as I turned around to face him. A smile couldn’t help but appear as I took in the sight of him before me. He was already in his pajamas, hair messy waves around his face. “Why are you so surprised to see me hmm? Aren’t your friends allowed to come over and visit you?”, I joked, delighted to find I could still be myself around him even if I did like him. I had been so afraid it would get awkward around him, but something about him made me relax instead and I just naturally fell into the pattern of feeling secure  enough to be myself around him. He stared at me with a dumbfounded expression, clearly still confused. I rolled my eyes at him, flicking his forehead as I walked past him to switch on brighter lights. “Didn’t Mir say anything?”, I asked.

“Aniya, I forgot.”, Mir said, grinning sheepishly. I shook my head at his forgetfulness and busied myself with packing out the things I brought. “I’m cooking for you tonight”, I explained to Joon.

“Mir had the idea of inviting me over, so here I am”, I said. “Am I welcome?”, I asked when Joon didn’t say anything.

“Of course!”, Joon said, smiling warmly, ‘Although Mir should have said you were coming… I mean we could’ve gotten ingredients for you… or at least cooked for you!”

“No I insisted! I want to cook for you guys”, I said giving him an encouraging smile. “I enjoy it”

Joon smiled broadly, walking over to me with his arms outstretched. My heart gave a tiny leap, combined with an ache. He hugged me tightly, lifting me off the floor. I giggled in his arms, enjoying the feeling of his arms wrapped around me again. When he released me he looked over himself. “Well I’ll need to change into something more presentable.”, Joon stated

“Honestly Joon you don’t have to, it’s not like I haven’t seen you in worse and I mean I’ve seen you -”, I stopped myself, my mouth still open from my unfinished sentence. He raised his brow expectantly and I closed my mouth. “Nevermind”, I said raising my brows in innocence. To my surprise his expression turned to one of amusement and instead of his usual frown that appeared when something of that night was accidentally mentioned, he giggled.  I looked at him with a mixture of surprise and curiosity, but he only stuck his tongue out to me and ruffled my hair. I decided to ignore the pressing questions swirling in my head and busied myself with the cooking. The others appeared out of their rooms after a while as well at least dressed in their usual casual attire – Mir probably warned them I was here – and watched with interest as I started cooking for them. Joon insisted on being my assistant in the kitchen while the others sat at the little stools watching us intently. At first it was fun we talked while I was cooking, Joon handing me whatever I needed, but as soon as we started with some chopping, he kept messing things up.

“Out!”, I cried, shoving him and the others out of the kitchen. Firstly it was clear Joon didn’t know the first thing about cooking so he wasn’t much of a help, secondly the others constantly watching me made me nervous and thirdly Joon kept distracting me. I had almost nicked my fingers with the sharp kitchen knife when I had looked up towards his beautiful laughing face.