"JISUNG" I heard Em say as she playfully kicked me in my sleep. I woke up slowly opening one eye to see her sitting on my bed next to me hitting me with her foot.

"wha?" I mumbled still not awake "Why you kick?" I said trying to make sense of what planet I was currently on.

"I can't get all my boxes myself. I need your help remember?" I suddenly remembered that she'd had boxes shipped to the dorm with stuff she couldn't fit in her suitcase.

"box. right" I muttered as I slowly tried to sit up and unglue my eyelids. "Time is it?" I still thought I was making sense, but I also probably wasn't.

"8 o'clock. Get your butt up. I would think you'd be used to early mornings by now." She laughed standing up.

"nope" I said finally standing up. She looked so pretty today. Her hair was pulled up high in a messy ponytail and she had sage green leggins on with a really baggy white shirt. I had to stop myself from imagining that it was my shirt. I tore my eyes away from her quickly and made my way to my bathroom to get splash water on my face to wake up. You'd think I'd be used to early mornings, well, if you consider eight o'clock early. I'm not. I'm usually just floating around looking kind of awake until I'm actually awake.

A couple hours later I sat on the floor of her small loft apartment leaning against one of the boxes we had just lugged down the hall.

"What the hell did you pack? Bricks? Bags of cement? A dead body?"

"Shoes." She replied without looking up from what she was organizing in the kitchen.

"That is an ungodly amount of shoes, Em." I joked as I put my head back against the box and caught my breath.

"A girl has to be prepared for any situation, dear Jisung." She joked as she put down what she was doing and sat down
next to me putting her head on my shoulder. "I'm tired already. I still have three boxes to unpack."

"I was in shock when they showed up at my door. I thought maybe you just shipped yourself in one of them." I laughed.

"I can't believe I'm finally here. In my own place. In Korea." She said lifting her head and looking out the large window.

"I'm happy you're here. I've missed you." I said honestly, "it's been so long since we've been in the same room...the same country even. I guess I took it for granted when I saw you every single day in school."

"I've missed you too. I'm sorry we didn't get to talk much last night. I just passed out once my belly was full." She replied.

"Yeah, that's one thing that hasn't changed." I said poking her in the shoulder. She looked at me pretending to me angry
and swatted my arm.

"Rude." She laughed looking around the room.

"Remember when we first met and I had to help you lug that mini fridge up the stairs to your dorm?"

"That fridge had NO RIGHT to be called mini!!!" She exclaimed.

It had taken us two hours to push it up the four flights of stairs to get to her dorm room. It had to have been the heaviest most annoying mini fridge I'd ever seen. "Didn't you just leave it there when you moved out?"

"I did! There was no way I was lugging it back down. It would have rolled over me and killed me!" She laughed sitting up straight. "So. How's the dating scene in Korea? Just as bad as California I'm assuming?"

"I don't know. I'm not in the dating scene, Em. Not right now anyway. You know that." I said awkwardly. I hated dating. I'd never had a serious relationship. I had dated a few girls for a couple months at a time until I was tired of lying to them and I'd break up with them. I know it sounds mean, but what else was I supposed to do? If it's not going to work, it won't
work.

"I know. Just asking." She said looking away from me and down at her hands. I could have sworn a look of satisfaction crossed her face for a moment. Like she was happy I wasn't seeing anyone. I smiled to myself softly before we decided to order lunch and watch movies the rest of the day.

Later that night she'd fallen asleep in my lap to her favorite movie. I didn't want to move her and wake her up. I leaned my head back against the couch and looked out the window to my right. The city of Seoul was lit up in the night, people I'm sure were walking around below grabbing food from the store, or shopping for new clothes, but here I was with the girl I'm in love with in a quiet apartment alone. I had one hand placed on her shoulder and the other brushed her hair back out of her face. God I wished that this could be my life every single night.

"Em..." I whispered putting a hand gently on the top of her head. "I gotta go" I whispered to her. Slowly she started moving and sitting up. Looking at me while she wiped her eyes and squinted against the soft light in the room.

"Did I miss the movie?" She asked like a small child that just gotten woken from a nap.

"Yep. You slept through pretty much the whole thing." I smiled at her. She looked so small sitting there in her baggy t-shirt that was three sizes too big. I walked over to a stool at her kitchen island and grabbed my jacket.

"Damn jet lag." She mumbled laying back down on the couch to go back to sleep.

"Don't sleep on the couch, go to bed" I laughed, she had a brand new mattress set up in the loft.

"Too many stairs" She mumbled. Sighing loudly, I put my jacket back down on the chair. I walked over to the couch and picked her up. She wrapped her arms around my neck and laid her head down on my shoulder half asleep. I carried her up the stairs, and laid her down in her bed.

"Better?" I asked quietly pulling the blankets over her. She sleepily nodded her head and I stood there watching her for a moment before heading back downstairs and walking myself home. Silently wishing I could have crawled into bed next to her.

***
A couple weeks later Ember was at the for dinner. We had been trying to have dinner with all of us a couple times a month. She'd been very busy with work, and we had been too. Even though we were in the same city now, we didn't get to see each other every single day, but we did text. She'd text me good morning, I'd text her a picture of my lunch. She'd tell me about her day, and I'd tell her about mine. She'd tell me goodnight, and I'd sit there wishing I could type 'I love you' but ultimately end up saying goodnight instead.

We'd fallen into a comfortable rhythm with our friendship that we hadn't had since high school. As much as I was trying to force myself to just tell her, it was nice that we had almost just picked up where we left off when we saw each other last in Malaysia. Except she was missing the pink streak in her hair and I had upgraded to contacts and a better hair cut.

"Sooni! Just love me!" Ember whined from the couch as Sooni jumped away from her. "Ooo! Dori!" She squealed as the cat came out from Minho's room and sauntered over to her. "Hi" She said gently as the cat jumped up into her lap. Minho just shook his head and laughed.

"She's going to steal my cat one of these days. I can feel it" Minho said elbowing me.

"Nah, she'll just move in so she can see her all the time." I joked back.

"I can hear you, you know!" Ember said grumpily from the couch, I could tell something was up. Usually when she came for dinner she was her very happy go lucky, but today she looked more like she was pretending to be happy.

"Yeah, we know you can. That's the point" I said laughing at her. She rolled her eyes and shook her head before putting all her focus back on Dori. I walked to the kitchen to see what was cooking but Felix caught me staring at her again.

"You keep doing that and she's going to catch you" He whispered to me over food sizzling in a pan. Felix has been the only one who really supports me in not wanting to tell her yet. Everyone else was pushing for me to tell her ASAP. Felix, however; fully believed in waiting for the right time and place. He understood why I was so afraid to tell her.

"Yeah. I know" I said looking away from her and looking at the pan. "What is it?"

"Aglio di Olio....with lots of cheese." He laughed. "It's the only thing I know how to make for this many people all at once."

"No it's not, you cook all the time for all of us." I said confused.

"No Minho usually helps me cook for all of us. He didn't want to help this time." Felix threw the pasta in the water as Hyunjin threw some cherry tomatoes in the pan next to him, "Hey! Those weren't in the recipe!"

The two of them started arguing over the tomatoes as I went back to the living room and sat down next to Dori and Ember.

"Sometimes. I feel like you live in a mad house." She said looking over at me.

"Yeah, me too." I put my head back on the couch as Changbin jokingly sat in my lap followed by Jeongin sitting in his. "I'm going to die." I choked out as the rest of them piled on top with the exception of Felix and Hyunjin who were still discussing tomatoes. Changbin's butt was now directly on top of my face, smothering me. I could feel a hand pushing the wrong way on my knee and someone's voice was directly in my ear though the lack of oxygen from Changbin's ass wasn't helping me figure out who.

"No killing my Hannie!" Ember shouted scaring off Dori. "Everyone off." She pointed to the side as if she was the teacher telling her students to behave. Slowly everyone piled off of me and I just laid there in shock at how quickly that went sideways. But also enjoying the fact that she just called me hers.

"Changbin. Please don't ever sit on my face again." I begged sitting up. "Wow, that sounded dirtier then I meant for it too."

Everyone started laughing, as I stood up, Ember followed me to the bathroom.

"Are you ok?" She asked gently.

"I'm fine." I said, "They're just joking around." I laughed, she actually seemed really worried. "Em, I swear I'm fine. We do that to each other all the time. It's a running joke."

"Ok." She mumbled.

"Em? What's wrong?" I asked leaning against the bathroom door frame and studying her. She kept her head down and looked back up at me with what almost looked like tears in her eyes. It was very unusual for her to be emotional. She was the type to stuff something down so far so many times that she'd just explode one day for no reason. This seemed different though. Very different, and it bothered me that I couldn't figure out why.

"Nothing." She said covering it up, "Just was worried you couldn't breathe." She smiled at me and awkwardly started to walk away. I grabbed her elbow and pulled her back towards me.

"You know you can talk to me right? About anything?" I said looking her eyes. She nodded her head and gave a small pained smiled before leaving me in the hall alone. I hadn't seen her like that in a really long time, and it bothered me. I couldn't help but feel like it had nothing to do with me at all.

Later on that night I was laying in my bed watching youtube videos of people camping in the rain. It was my new favorite thing to do before bed. There was a knock on my door, and Ember popped her head in. I'd thought she'd gone home a couple hours ago, but I wasn't going to complain.

"Hey, I thought you went home?" I asked sitting up. Suddenly feeling a bit underdressed without a shirt on.

"I did, but I just felt like I needed to talk to you." She mumbled sitting down on my bed as I moved over to give her room.

"You were kind of weird at dinner, what's going on?" She looked back down at her hands and I saw a tear roll down her cheek. I sat up and gently put a hand on her back.

"Um" She started before sniffing loudly, "There's another reason I came to Korea...besides the job. Something I never told you..."

Confused I stayed silent. We told each other everything, right down to the things people don't usually say to other people. All of our insecurities and flaws, every time we did something good, and every single time we messed up. I had a hard time thinking there was something I didn't know about her.

"Ok" I said, unsure of what else to say.

"Three months ago I was coming home from the bar I was working in. It was raining really hard and my car wouldn't start."

This was sounding like a bad horror movie, and I didn't like where I thought this was going.

"One of my regulars offered to give me a ride. He was about our age, maybe a year or so older. I don't know." She sniffed loudly before she continued, "He drove me towards home, but told me he had a stop to make somewhere on the way, and I believed him. He stopped at this lookout along the side of the freeway and started talking to me like he was on a date with me."

I swallowed hard and moved closer to her, preparing myself for the worst.

"He tried to kiss me and I jumped back from him and asked what the hell he was doing. I mean, that's a normal reaction right? So he got mad. Out of nowhere, he grabbed the back of my head and slammed it into the dash and then slapped me. He was yelling and screaming at me that I was a tease." She was really crying now, the tears were rolling down her face, I hadn't realized until now that I had my other hand balled into fist so tight my fingers were starting to hurt and my nails were digging into my skin.

"He tried undoing my pants, but somehow I managed to open the door and jump out. God, I feel so stupid." She put her hands up to cover her face and I wrapped both my arms around her pulling her into my chest. I didn't know what to say other then a long list of curse words that weren't going to make her feel better.

"I think I ran about a mile before I got back to a place where I could use the phone and call the police. He was in jail waiting for his trial, but he got out on bond. So when SM offered me the job I figured it was a great way to get away from him. Go somewhere he couldn't find me. Just disappear." Her shoulder shuttered with each breath. "I know I should have told you, but I was ashamed of myself for being so damned stupid. What was I thinking would happen when I got into a car with a stranger?"

"Em. You're not stupid. You always want to see the good in people." I said into the top of her head as she cried. I'd kill him if I ever saw him, he didn't deserve to breathe air after what he did.

"I had a concussion and a huge gash on my forehead. He slapped me so hard I had a cut on my cheek from the ring he was wearing." She sniffed and wrapped her arms even tighter around my waist then they already had been. I put my cheek down on the top of her head and let her cry as long as she needed to.

When she finally stopped crying, she asked if she could stay the night. I laid down pulled her down with me "C'mere" I said gently and she crawled under the covers and put her head on my chest. She held on to me as if she was going to be ripped away. She cried some more until she finally started to get sleepy.

"I'm sorry, Jisung" She mumbled sadly, "I should have told you."

"No, you have nothing to be sorry for. Don't apologize. You weren't ready to talk about it. I understand." I said brushing back the hair that was stuck to her face.

"I just don't want you to feel like I don't trust you.." She said while still crying.

"Don't worry about me. I'm fine." I whispered to her, "Go to sleep, ok?"

She nodded her head against my chest and almost instantly fell asleep. It amazed me when I realized she was in my bed, with her head on my chest and I didn't care. All the nights I had dreamed of this, and it was happening and I didn't care. All I cared about was her and making sure she was ok.