because this chapter was (1/1)

seriously forgive me for the inappropriate title  December 9/ Key’s POV “You see,” Jinki-hyung was explaining. “This one goes here,” he put the second balloon on the right side of Minho’s head on the tarp. “He looks pretty!” I remarked. We laughed together.When our laughter subsided, hyung asked, “Really, Key. Don’t you think it’s a bit shameless of us to use their garden as the venue for Minho’s birthday?”I shook my head. “Nope. It’s okay. It’s the people here that insisted that we use it. Especially the painters. They wanted to see SHINee together,”“Fan girls?” Onew-hyung grinned.I shrugged. “Not really,”Hyung chuckled. “I’ll just go call Minho.” And he went in inside the East Wing. “Aaaaah~” I lied on the hammock and looked at the branches of the tree where it was attached. “I’m tired,”I folded my arms and clasped my arms at the back of my head. I sighed. I haven’t seen HyunMi today. They said she was out buying something, which I think is very clever of her, for she once again improvised a plan on avoiding me. Truth be told, I’m not okay. I haven’t seen for two days. If I miss her?  Well, yes. When I learnt how to avoid HyunMi, I learnt how to long for her. Since the ‘accident’ I get sappy most of the time. My temper is shorter than ever. Nothing seems to go right. And I blame HyunMi for that. There is no use denying it—I have found my match. Almighty Key finally found his match. A girl as sarcastic, as verbally-adroit, and as bossy as me. That’s her, Moon HyunMi. Now, because of some stupid crazed fan the relationship we have is destroyed. I swear, if ever I see that girl again she is going to pay.I put my right leg down and pushed it sideways on the ground to let the hammock swing. I closed my eyes, and I was drifting off to sleep when I heard the gate opening. My eyes fluttered open and I rose. I ran, but stopped in my tracks and hid behind the wall when I saw the person that went in the compound. “Hey, HyunMi! How was your shopping?” So Eul-noona opened the door before HyunMi could even open it.“Nice, unnie. Thanks for asking,” HyunMi smiled, and for a moment the HyunMi I knew was there. But I wasn’t granted any further observation because she immediately went in.“Ya!” someone suddenly pushed my back.“Ow! Ya!” I slapped Jonghyun-hyung’s arm. “What’s with you?”He giggled. “Spying is your new business, I see,”I rolled my eyes. “Leave me alone,”“Are you okay now?”“Me? Oh,” I snorted. “Of course,”“No. I meant you two.”This sent an uneasy feeling to my stomach. “More or less,”“So it’s still not fixed yet, is it?” he asked in a tender voice.My shoulders slacked. “No. No it isn’t.”  ONEW’s POV (this deserves some applause, this doesn’t usually happen!) I put the phone down, having settled things with Minho through a call. All of us were free for the whole afternoon, and today, we were to celebrate his day. He wasn’t oblivious of the fact that we were going to throw a party for him—like Key, sometimes, this guy has keen psychic powers. And we thought our efforts would be in vain if we tried to plan it out on stealth mode, so, what we did, we did the exact opposite. (it was Key’s idea) We kept on talking about how we would throw Minho’s birthday party in front of him and it was all we ever talked about in the dorm for the whole week, birthday boy begged us to stop. Nevertheless, we never ceased in planning out the decors, the food, and where to celebrate it. And we stumbled upon here, in the Kwan Art Institute mansion-slash-painters’ dorm-slash-school-slash-museum, by the fervent request of the painters’ themselves. Even some of the artists, too, were interested in celebrating with us. We didn’t mind, though. We know what they say—the more, the merrier. I went in the kitchen to drink water. When I made my ingress, I saw Seohyun along with Nicole, Jiyeon, and another painter who was I think Seohyun’s partner.As I chugged down the water, I heard them talking while making soup. “Oh, they still haven’t made peace with each other yet?” Nicole asked with incredulity. I hid behind the fridge. Jiyeon shook her head in a rather sad way. “They still haven’t. I miss the two of them,”The painter spoke up as she chopped the onions. “I do, too. And their fights are being more frequent, don’t you think? At the beach. Last week. The fight of which is still effective up to this moment.  And they’re getting worse. It’s getting more personal, not like the usual hissing and sassing at each other,”“And Namja the second. Just look at him,” Nicole said, wafting the smoke from the pot with her hands. “They’re always spending time with each other. If you know what I mean,”It was only when Seohyun spoke up that I remembered that she was there. “They’ll be at peace with each other soon, don’t worry,”“How do you know?” Nicole interjected.“I just know.” she smiled enigmatically.“Do you know something we don’t know?” her partner drew her face closer to hers in investigation.Seohyun sighed. “I’ll tell you. But don’t tell anyone, okay? They might get embarrassed,”The girls giggled altogether. “Okay. C’mon, drop it.” oh, women. They just love gossip, don’t they?And, though I didn’t know who they were talking about, I listened.Seohyun explained. “They fought at the beach, right? And do you wonder how they made up?”“No we didn’t.” the others shook their heads.Seohyun’s eyes disappeared as her grin got wider. “The night before we went home here in Seoul, I wanted to go out and take in some air because I couldn’t sleep. I was walking to the beach when I saw two figures that I know entirely. It was them, standing apart from each other. Yeoja was the first one to stand from her position, and approached Namja. He didn’t move at first, making an invisible wall of pride between them. But then moments later, I think they said something to each other that they were again at peace. I saw Namja putting his arm over the girl’s shoulder, drawing her closer to where he sat,” she stated, a light rubicund appearing on her cheeks.“Aww~” the girls breathed altogether. “What happened next?” Jiyeon queried.SNSD’s maknae shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what happened after that. I decided to leave, perceiving that I’d intrude their privacy if I kept on spectating.”The other girls made a groan of disappointment.“But tell you what. Shortly after the fireworks display, they walked back to the building, and, in sheer coincidence, I was there. Namja said Yeoja apologized to him first, to which Yeoja responded with a denial, putting both of them in yet another adorable verbal skirmish,” Seohyun added. And her expression turned sad. “HyunMi and Key. They don’t know how much we notice,” HyunMi and Key? How come I don’t know about this? My body made a sudden muscle twitch upon the surprise at the statement, that I knocked on the table, and came stumbling, revealing myself to them.  HYUNMI’S MIND I shook my head. It was improper to think of it. But no matter how hard I tried, the damn thought wouldn’t just get the heck out of my head.For maybe the fiftieth time for the day, it replayed in my head. …..Creases started to form on my shirt, and my skin was slowly being exposed to the cold air for my sweater was already being tugged down. A familiar hand, clenching his pointer on the back of my shirt. Gruff sounds at the back of the throat, gaping for air. My legs moving to correct my position. Tongue intrusion in respective mouths. Soon his face was covered in my locks, as we swayed our heads to an unheard melody, all I could think of was it was wrong, yet kept doing it.Meanwhile while my hands were on his cheeks, the temperature rose and I felt my shirt soaking with sweat. So did his and him. The hammock swung to and fro as we fidgeted in it, which just added a more dizzying flavor to my spinning head that thought only of the mouth that was on mine.  Kibum-ah, I’m sorry.Kibum-ah, I’m sorry.Kibum-ah, I’m sorry.Kibum-ah, I’m sorry… “Stop,” Dongwoon was the first to draw out. He held me by the shoulders and pushed me upward. He was panting and his face was rubicund. “This is wrong,” he said, as we fixed our positions to sit. “I’m very sorry, HyunMi…ssi. I know it’s not me,”Before I could even reply, he stood up and walked away. He was hurt, yes, but why? OH. I buried my face in my hands. It felt like I killed something innocent and buried it under the leaves. …. “NO!” I threw the canvas on the wall. “No-no-no!!!” chaos reigned in my room as I threw my things in frenzy. “NO!”Wrappers of chocolate, torn canvas-cloth, and a splatters of colors on the ground that made an unpleasant rainbow. “I hurt him. And him. And myself,” I put my hands on my ears and squatted. Tears streamed down my cheeks. “HyunMi? HyunMi!” what’s with all the noise? I heard Changmin-oppa’s voice. “If you don’t answer me I’m going to enter! Come on, the party is about to start!”Oh, no. they can’t see me on this state. I panicked and made pathetic attempts on clearing up the mess I made. “Something fell, oppa!” I managed to answer in a steady voice. “I’ll be going downstairs!”“Okay,” he replied, and I heard steps descending the stairs. We managed to avoid each other during the entire party. I was asked by everyone to give a speech wishing Minho well on his day, and I was such an actress. I smiled cheerily, laughed, interacted and acted like everything was perfect. Only two people, aside from Kibum, I think knew of our fight. One was Jonghyun-oppa, who I caught several times looking at me. The other was Onew-oppa, who wouldn’t stop gawking at me. “Bye. Thanks for celebrating your day here,” I tapped Minho’s shoulder once when they were departing.He chuckled. “No, thank you. For me to stop growing tall? That wish was a first, HyunMi-ssi,” we laughed. “Why don’t you say goodbye to Key?”That put me in discomfort. “I said goodbye to them already. I’m good,” I lied.“Oh. Okay,” he nodded, eyeing the van outside the gate. “I’ll be going now, HyunMi-ssi. Annyeong,”“Annyeong~” I waved back. I unlocked the doorknob to my room and as quickly as I threw my fit, I cleaned up my mess. When I was done, I went to the fridge and got a bottle of chocolate vodka. It didn’t have much alcohol content, so it was no harm. When I finished up seven bottles, I started to look for more. But the other bottles were in the East Wing fridge. However, as much as I wanted more, I didn’t want them to see me in my half-drunken state. I just stayed in my room to let the queasiness pass, and while I was at it, I fell into a deep abyss of subconsciousness.  December 10/HyunMi “Unnie, what is this that you’ve done to my hair?” I frowned at my reflection. My hair was straightened and the curls were only at the end. I looked…wrong. “I look stupid!” I ruffled my hair.“Oh, careful!” she combed it again. “It’s just temporary,”“Really? So I won’t be coming back to LA looking like this?”“Absolutely.” The door creaked open and unnie smiled. “Key-ssi,”I turned, and I saw him. I wanted to run, but I put on a serious face.“Ne, Hi.” He smiled at us.“I’ll leave you two, then.” Unnie left the room. For the first time, unnie was living in oblivion of what was happening.I stayed in front of the mirror, brushing my hair.“What happened to your hair?” he asked.“Styled.”“For what?”“Nothing.”Silence.He took a step closer. “I’m done reading. I mean the book you gave me.”“Okay,” I stood up, and walked to the shelf. “Study light and shade next,” I gave him the book. “HyunMi…” he said weakly in a pleading voice.“Study this,” I repeated.“How long do you plan on treating me like this?”“Like what, Key?”“Like this—all this playing of dead air!”I laughed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”“If this is about what happened—““—No. This is not about that. Now study this.” The book fell on the ground in a flash. They weren’t brawny, nor were they thick, but I was immediately at home at the arms that tightly hugged me. A part of my brain was yelling at me, telling me to let go, but another was telling me to stay, that this may be the only way to fix things. I listened to neither—I only let myself freeze as he made his speech with his mouth near my ear.“HyunMi, I know you’re in there,” he said, like he was talking to someone else. “I’m sorry. I’m very, very sorry. I know I hurt you. Please, do know that I am. I know that no matter how much I explain this to you, you won’t listen, but all I know right now is I want to apologize. I’m not seducing or persuading you right now right now—I’m so sorry and, if you’ll allow, be forgiven. This is Kibum your friend, not the Key who’s your partner in the project. I’m talking to you, HyunMi. You in there. I know this one I am with right now is not you…” he paused a little to inhale, and I knew his voice was becoming shaky. “I know you’ll leave, and I accept that, though there’s pain when I think of it. You said you’ll miss me. Well, I will, too, and even now I already am. Moon HyunMi, please come back even just  for a day so that I could properly say goodbye…” at long last, a tear came skidding down my cheek. “And know this: you mean so much more to me than what you think.” He broke free of the hug and looked straight into my eyes. His face was red, but he succeeded in keeping a steady voice. “Thanks for letting me talk to her,” he picked up the book. “I’ll study this, right? Okay. I’ll be going now; it’s late,” and he made his graceful egress. Too many emotions overwhelmed me as I stood there. I realized my legs felt jelly, and, finally, the scaffolds of my body structure gave way, their strength vanishing away.I broke down on the floor, and cried.