1 month later>>>>

The weather didn't change. I gazed out through the windows and I saw the trees were covered with snow indicating the arrival of Christmas.

My body quivered when I opened the window. The chill wind messed up my already messed up hair. I gasped when I saw the soulless street with a single lamp flickering in the dark night. I hugged myself for warmth while my hands had its protective grip over a newspaper.

That's because the headlines is Taemin today. I totally can't understand their share and stock language but I can make out that their group is starting rise up in the stock market.

I rested my hands on the window rails and peeked out to breath the fresh air. My cheek felt colder as the trails of tear droplets still existed. I just can't help but cry alone every time I think of him. I'm just afraid that I'll lose him again..

The full moon was glimmering beautifully but none of them were appealing to my eyes.

I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket and so I took it out and positioned it in front of my eyes. My fingers swiped the lock screen and a smile tugged on my lips when I saw the wallpaper. I still remember...Our first picture together..it was taken on our date. My eyes scanned on his face rather than my own.

I saw how happy I looked when I took that picture. My smile reached my eyes as I posed to the camera while Taemin on other hand intently gazing at me rather than posing for the camera. My fingers unconsciously brushed his face.

We didn't know that we were making moments until it turned into memories...

I recollected my senses when I saw teardrops on my phone ruining his perfect face. The next second I realized that those tears were from my eyes. I hurriedly rubbed my eyes as I almost forgot the reason why I even unlocked my phone.

From Amber: Keep the front door opened at 8!

I checked the time and it was exactly 8 and before I could even react, I heard my doorbell ringing.

"Haneul! I told you that I'll be coming by 8 right?" Amber screamed through the door.

I quickly went and opened the door for her and she greeted me with a warm hug. As people say hugging makes you feel happier, it's true I guess.

"Hi!!!!!!!!" She shouted and pulled me to another hug.

"Hi.." I just smiled. Amber's expression changed as she blew her front bangs and made me sit on the couch.

"Just tell me how long are you going to sulk?" She asked me gripping my shoulders.

"No...I'm alright" I lied but as I said earlier, I suck at lies.

"He's not going to be there in US forever. Taemin is going to come back to you soon...Please don't be like this..." she pleaded.

I stayed silent for a minute.

I know he'll come back to me but I fear that I'll lose him....again. I lost him when I was young and I'm scared that I'll lose him again. I don't want to wait for a decade for him like the last time. It.....It hurts when I think about it.

"It's been a month....since he last spoke to me. I don't know anything about his whereabouts, his health, if he's happy or sad or nothing. I-I'm just so concerned about him Amber.." I said controlling my tears.

"I don't know what I should tell you. But I'm sure of this, he loves you so much. He would even fall from a cliff if you ask him to do so, he will definitely come for you..Trust me" she said hugging me tight.

I carefully observed her every word and it raised the hopes in me.

"Thank you, Amber" I hugged her back tightly.

"How can you leave me?!!" I heard Sulli's voice and she hurried her way and hugged both of us. I just laughed.

A lot of things happened in the past 30 days. That tux guy is not following me anymore. I don't know what happened but once I caught him speaking to Minho and he's nowhere to be seen the next day.

We became so close to Sulli. A shocking thing happened when I went to school the day after Taemin sent me the text. Alice hugged me! She didn't speak much. She was like, "Don't worry. Everything is gonna be alright. He'll be back soon" and I never expected this from her.

Later the trio (Key, Minho, Onew) would act weirdly funny to make me laugh and since I didn't want to disappoint them, I just laughed. They do their best to make me forget all my sadness. But when I'm alone I just think of him and become moody again.

Alice sometimes joins our conversation. And I bet she's developing feelings for Jonghyun. She knows that Jonghyun is a playboy and so she didn't want to fall for his tricks. But for me, whenever I see Jonghyun, I catch him while he is deeply staring at Alice.

Kai.. he grew so close to me. But even now, he rarely joins our conversation. I don't why he always speaks to me with his charming face and to the other he has a straight face. He even received several proposals from the girls. Recently he has been involved in a fight too. He got into a fight. Remember the first day he punched Minwoo? He took revenge against Kai last week. But Kai won this time too. People told me that it was a 10 VS 1 fight and the guys were beaten up by Kai.

It's the talk of our school till today. And Kai is not to bothered about it. He In fact has hidden this from me. I never spoke to him when I came to know about it and I only spoke to him only after he reflected on his mistake.

I forced him to apologize Minwoo who was admitted in the hospital because of his violent actions.

"Kai?! Apologizing?! Come on! You have no idea how he beats up guys when they misbehave with him. Some were even admitted in the hospital. He won't even feel bad for their condition...and now, he's apologizing to Minwoo just because you told!" Sulli went on and on.

"I'm telling you this for the nth time, Kai likes you!" She added and poked my arm.

"Exactly!!" Amber joined as I face palmed.

"Are you crazy? He is just close to me... " I answered. I admit, those words just came out of my mouth but not from my heart. Some instinct tells me that Sulli's words are partly true.

"My question is why is he close just with you and not with anyone.." Amber argued.

"He laughs and smiles and talks and is only active around her. He even apologized to Minwoo just because you told him to. Come on! I know about Kai. He's definitely not that type of a guy who would listen to someone's words.."

"Can we please drop this conversation?" I pleaded.

We stayed silent for a minute and suddenly Sulli broke it.

"Only one week...just one more week, then I'll be back to my own school after the foundation day..I won't be able to meet you guys.." she sulked.

"Are you worrying over us or Minho?" Amber glared and Sulli creepily smiled.

Now talking about that, I'm worried about Kai. He'll leave the school next week and I don't want him to be like the guy he was when he was there.

-------------------

"You are the apple of my eyes. I love you to the moon and back! Juliette, Come back soon for me!" Kai kneeled in front of Eunmi and spoke.

"I will be back to your embrace soon Romeo.." she replied him.

Kai's acting skills are much better but still he is not doing it naturally. I nearly watched the play more than 100 times that I remember each and every dialogue. Anyways there was supposed to be a kissing scene at the end but they planned to fake it since Kai was not comfortable with it.

"You are doing fine now.." I complimented.

"Really?..Thank you" he smiled.

"You told me that you want to tell me something right?" I asked him when I suddenly remembered our yesterday's "drop in the middle" conversation.

His cheeks emitted a light shade of pink upon hearing my question.

"W-Well....It's n-not s-something....t-that's so important...N-No..I actually forgot it!...N-No.Just f-forget it!" He stuttered while scratching his head.

I looked at him weirdly.

"What's wrong with you?" I hit him playfully.

"Nothing's wrong with me..Something is wrong with You.. Your smiles have no charm in it and you look dull nowadays..." he said looking at me.

"You think so?"

"Yes...Please don't be like that..."

"Oh really? Then tell me that thing which you "forgot" and I'll smile again..." I shot back.

He stopped moving and looked at the ground. He looked like he was seriously contemplating something. His face had the same shade of pink.

"I didn't actually forget it.... "

"Then tell me" I turned back and looked at him.

He raised his head and looked at me. He gulped his saliva as he ran his fingers through his hair. I could hear him breathing out loudly. I keenly observed his actions.

"I....was actually planning to...."

"To?"

"Take you somewhere...." he looked at me with his eyes getting all curious to know my reply.

"Well, okay! You don't have to be that tensed. Let's all go together. I'll call Amber, Su-"

"No! It's just us.." he cut me off.

I eyed him. My eyebrows furrowed as I directly looked at his eyes.

"Why..? It's just...us?" I asked him back with my head slight bent one side.

"I-It's something special that I want to share only with the person....whom I'm close to..that's why.." he answered and he looked at me again with those curious eyes.

"I'm telling this for the nth time, Kai likes you!"

I shook my head. Why did I suddenly reminisced Sulli's words? What is wrong with me? I looked down seriously. A lot of thoughts processed in my head.

Is he developing feelings for me?

Oh My! What am I thinking? It's definitely not a date too. Is it?

I looked up to face him. I tried to read him through his expression. Even though I told Sulli that I'm sure the relationship between Kai and I is nothing but friendship but I want to know what's going on in his mind. Thinking of that, there are many times I caught him stealing glances at me.

Let's put an end stop to these non sense thoughts..

"Okay..I'm free today" I said and he smiled on hearing this word.

"You can pick me u-WAIT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? KAI!!!" I screamed when he immediately pulled my wrist and started to run.

"Kai! Are you crazy?!!!" I said trying to match his pace.

"Yes!!!" He heartily screamed. My god! I've never seen this happy side of him.

We took a metro and then again we ran and ran and ran in the snow. It's a an hour drive from our school. He suddenly he stopped running when once we were in front of some sort of empty ground covered with pine trees. It looked like a country side but definitely not a place where people would usually visit.

"So...This is.... that.... "somewhere"?" I asked him panting with my hands resting on my kneecaps.

"Yes"

"Are you kidding?"

"Nope"

I stared at him blankly but he smiled in turn. He now gently pulled my wrist and started walking towards the place. Now..that's getting creepy. It looked like a jungle with all those creepy insect noises, the sound of dried leaves being crushed under our feet as he slowly led me. I could feel my legs getting deeply buried in the snow if I stay put in the same place for a minute.

"Kai...is this a jungle?"

"Sort of.." he replied not seeing me. I looked around the place and I'm sure this is not seen or inhabited by any human.

We walked for awhile and the place was fully covered by trees that there is barely any space to even walk. There wasn't even space for sunlight and it's creepily dark. The place looked so cranky and we couldn't walk any further. We halted when a huge branch of a tree blocked us from getting further in. Like a dead end.

He suddenly turned towards my direction.

"What?" I asked him.

"Don't be too surprised okay?" He asked me with a wide smile plastered on his face.

"I bet I won't!" I spoke back trying to be funny.

He lifted the huge branch upwards while eyeing me. The snow from the branch drizzled down and fell on my eyes which made me to accidently step on his foot. I mumbled an apology and walked a little further.

When I saw the view, my eyes widened and my jaw almost dropped to the floor.

In front me of was a perfect round shaped pond in the middle of the snow covered land. The ripples of the water shimmered in the sunlight and it looked like a trillion of stars were glittering from beneath. The japonica flowers bloomed like an outline around the pond. The huge Winterberry stood straight with its flowered branches overlooking the pond.

I stood there frozen.....

"How come.....nobody knows about this beautiful place?" I whispered.

The place was the perfect example of tranquility which I expected. The fragrance, the ambience, the scenery...

It's so....beyond beautiful. This is magic.

Author's POV

"You're the first ever person to come to this place next to me" Kai proudly said.

"Is this even...Real?" She mumbled.

"It is..." he said and sat down on the snow covered ground.

He was calmly observing her actions as she looked at this majestic place with her eyes widened becoming totally speechless.

"You can sit here..." he said tapping on the spot next to him.

She walked backwards not willing to take her eyes off from the beautiful scenery and squatted next to him.

A smile appeared on her face as she finally got a enough and satisfying long glimpse at the pond.

"It's pretty right?" Haneul asked him.

"But you're prettier.." Kai whispered in a very low tone audible only to him.

The reason why he invited her to this place is totally different.

"What? I didn't hear you..what's prettier?" She asked him still not taking her eyes off.

"I said the flowers are prettier..." he managed to lie.

Kai just couldn't take his eyes off from her. His view was disturbed when her thin strands of hair fell on her cheeks because of the breeze. He badly wanted to tug it behind her ears but when the wind blew again her hair strands started to slowly sway in the direction of the wind. Fairy... was all he thought to describe her in a word.

She struggled to tug her hair behind her ears and when she did so, his eyes softened.

"You said that you won't be surprised?" He spoke up.

"I take back my words..."

"You look happy..."

"I do?" She turned towards him squinting her eyes.

Kai was getting hypnotized as she looked at him with a sparkle in her eyes and her hair again getting messed up by the cool breeze. A gentle smile is still playing on her lips.

"Yes...you do" he replied more like a whisper.

"And that's why...I brought you here. I didn't like you being moody for whatsoever reason..I wished to get you back to the old you...I don't have anything special to make you look happy or something...All I have is this.." he gasped.

She smiled at his sentence and continued to look at the pond. Kai couldn't help but stare at her. He looked at the 3 inch gap between them that was killing him.

His eyes fell on her beautiful long fingers that was resting on the snow. He was worried that her hand would get numb. Unconsciously his hand reached for her hand. He placed it gently on her hands.

Haneul looked down at her hands and then at him. Kai never realized that Haneul was staring at him raising her eye brows.

When their eyes met, he couldn't help but stare at her again. Her eyes, her nose, her cheeks that glimmered with a shade of red, her chapped lips, her skin that glowed in the sunlight.. everything looked like a magic. In short, she was mesmerized by her beauty. And never once he felt this feeling in his life. He could feel his heart beat rapidly raising.

His hand involuntarily tightened his grip over her hand. Something triggered in his heart, commanding him to lean forward. Telling me that this is the perfect moment. He was totally blindfolded by her actions that made him listen to his heart rather than his mind.

Haneul looked at him with her eyes furrowed as he slowly leaned forward towards her lips while gently closing his eyes. Slowly...

Keep your fingers crossed for the next UD!!