We're finally back with chapter 4! Ahhh so sorry for the wait ;_; but we both had a lot of stuff going on the past month (smh school .)
Also thank you so much for the wonderful reviews :^) We love hearing from you guys! So don't be afraid to comment and let us know what you think!
This has been an AN from Kristy~ hehee Enjoy! 3
"This could be worse," Luhan says, pitifully smiling as he tugs on the thick strings of his sweatshirt.
"Hyung, you're not allowed to say that anymore," Jongdae groans, his voice, as usual, piercing and loud as he flips on his hood and moves his legs up and down.
These ten people gather around in a quaint park, the sky melding the colors of light blue, pink, and gold together, weaving the streaks around each other like ribbons. Gathered around a large wooden picnic table, there's enough space for everybody to sit comfortably, but personal space is useless when you're freezing. Hazel has her arm around Sky, who fights to keep her aversion to the cold under control. Tao and Chanyeol, the two people who are closest to the girls personally sit on either side of them respectively, sandwiched close against each other. Neither of the boys dare to make a move to warm Hazel or Sky, who both seem contented with this notion. The rest of the guys have no regard for awkwardness or formalities, submerging in skinship with heads lounging on shoulders, lazily draping their arms around waists and more shoulders, whatever makes them comfortable. The non-natives try their best not to gawk too much.
Yixing, his dark round eyes ever more unreadable than usual in the dim fluorescent lights radiating from the lamp posts nearby, sighs loudly. "Aish, was it really necessary to kick us out of the hospital?" He sounds like an old ahjusshi disappointed with the course of life, crinkling his face in disappointment. "It's not like we were destroying anything. We were patients recovering from a very traumatic experience, so this has to be against the law or something."
"Technically, everyone was going to be discharged the day after tomorrow morning," Hazel says matter-of-factly. "No one was too hurt to stay any longer. You guys just sped up the process."
He huff in response, his fingers subconsciously fiddling with the zipper of his puffy windbreaker. "Right, right, and Chanyeol has a broken ankle."
Being called out, Chanyeol, his long-limbed arm hugging the shoulders of young Jongin, purses his lips also. "It's sprained, not broken and they gave me crutches," he gestures to the metal contraptions leaning against the table. "I just need to have with a check-up later. Don't drag me into this, hyung."
Tao sighs loudly, cutting off Yixing before he could complain more and brings the goods he gleaned from the convenience store onto the table before any tensions could erupt. Forgotten in the chaos from the wheelchair race to the mass exodus to the nearest park possible, the food still looks intact as Tao takes them out one by one. Chocolate bars, sweets, and soda cans catch the eye of the boys, watching him carefully with every step, completely pacified at the growing pile. As soon as Tao sits down, roughly knocking into Hazel who almost topples over with Sky, the moment fills with loud clamor as they attack the small mountain. Hands greedily snatched whatever seen fit, exchanging for preferences, and just like flipping a coin, the atmosphere becomes bearable as the guys snack away. Hazel quietly brings out her small bag, producing a packet of dried mangoes and pressing them into Sky's mittened hands, who thanks her and begins to nibble on them thoughtlessly, staring off into space.
Hazel looks over to her right, seeing Tao shrink back into the stoic image she remembers from the first time they met. "Are you not going to eat anything?"
"Huh?" he looks at her, the rest of his face obscured and tightly wounded by her red scarf so only his eyes show. "I will, I will," Tao holds up a bar of chocolate he palmed from the stash, "but it's just, I don't know, n-nice to watch them fight over the food and finally eating something after a day of not doing such, I guess. You should eat something too."
She nods, holding up a packet of strawberry gummies, managing a small smile for his sincerity.
"Yah, what's this?" Jongdae holds up a brightly colored bowl of ramen still in its plastic covering.
"It's ramen," Hazel says. "We got enough for everyone."
He taps his head. "Yeah, but one problem: there's no water and - who is that?"
The sudden change shifts everybody's attention behind them, and a cluster of people zipped up in dark, puffy jackets and various hats and scarves are walking up the path, furiously waving and carrying small bundles.
Someone's muffled words carries towards them by the wind. "Hey, hey!"
"Who are they?" Hazel asks.
Luhan smiles, his puffy cheeks flattening to show prominent bones. "Our friends. I was wondering they were off at!"
As the figures loom closer, she recognizes them - Kris, Joonmyun, and -
"Murder Eyes."
"Eh, what did you say, Hazel?"
Her words get cut off as the boys rise in a happy clamor at the arrival of the rest of their rather unnecessarily large crew. The new addition quickly set up their supplies - a gas burner, a huge plastic bag, a plastic blue gallon of water, a big metal pot, and huge slabs of saran-wrapped meat. Joonmyun explain animatedly that he got text messages from Sehun (who laughs nervously when all eyes falls upon him) about how hungry they are and how Kris, Joonmyun, and Kyungsoo planned to go to the hospital to cook hot-pot for everybody. However, upon their arrival, the trio were told that their friends has been officially discharged and they initially headed for the park for a place to put their things down to call the others. As luck will have it, they ran into each other. Kyungsoo quietly starts taking out the proper utensils, napkins, smaller bags of lettuce, and little packaged cups of chili paste during the telling of their ordeal.
Hazel exchanges looks with Sky.
"What's going on?" Sky whispers.
"This is really weird," Hazel says. "I don't know, but just go along with it."
"Whose idea was it to bring a pot to a park?"
Kris then squeezes between the pair of girls, briefly poking his head in. "It was my idea, now whose idea was it to get kicked out of the hospital?" His eyes fixes on Sky, who coughs politely and doesn't miss a step.
"Sehun's."
The addressed, a tall boy with dark brown hair spilling into his eyes, immediately looks up and loudly protests, "No, it wasn't my idea!"
Sky smirks, stepping out of her shell. "Yeah, it was!" She turns to the others who were present at the ordeal. "Am I right, guys?"
The rest chimes in, jokingly layering accusation after accusation and Luhan, sitting beside him, holds him in a playful headlock. Engulfed in laughter, everybody calms down long enough for Joonmyun to go and whack the back of Sehun's head with a bag of lettuce and they're nearly about to drop to the ground and roll around.
Hazel turns to Tao, her hand still clasped over her mouth from the merrymaking scene.. "Do you guys always hang out with this many people?"
He lets the scarf hang around his neck, grinning from ear to ear and still running on high on the mirth."Yeah, most of the time we split off into smaller groups, but sometimes, we stick together."
"That's great," Hazel smiles, brushing her hair behind her ear. "I think it's nice to have so many people around you who care about you." His polite smile makes her turn away from him, a slight blush creeping into her cheeks. She shakes her head quickly. What is she thinking? But she turns her head slightly, staring at him out of the corner of her eye as he laughs at someone's joke and she relaxes, letting her thoughts fall out, and turns her attention back to the group. Plates gets passed around, fights over food ensues, and the laughter runs long and loud, ringing as the night quietly falls, but it's unable to mask the noisy get-together.
"Hey, is this a good time for us to be laughing when we're in trouble with the company?"
The words of Joonmyun, sitting on top of another old picnic table they dragged over huddled between two guys, breaks down the conversations, the social ambiance disappears in a whisper.
Lips curled up permanently at the ends like a kitten, the mischievous grin doesn't spread into Jongdae's eyes, as he pipes up, "Yeah, he's right. Our début is in jeopardy."
And then the air explodes with a sudden torrent of outbursts from all twelve boys at once, overlapping and begins to crescendo. Sky and Hazel begins to exchange glances as the collective voices crashes around their ears, almost reaching a deafening roar. What's going on? The guys continue to argue on, some even jumping to their feet and raising their voices even more, and forgetting that the two female outsiders quietly speculating among them, completely fixated on a topic of utter ambiguity. It leaves them floating on the edge.
It falls on Hazel to find out. "Hey, guys," she says, and it falls on deaf ears. "Hey, hey, guys." She climbs out of her tight place between Sky and Tao in the bench, planting her feet firmly on the yellowed grass. "HEY!" Their attention gathers in the palm of her hand and she speaks quickly before it starts to sift through her fingers. "What are you guys talking about? What's this about a début?"
"Yeah, I heard about the company visiting you guys at the hospital," says Sky. "What's up with that?"
This shift reflects in their debate as they eyes the girls carefully, and then everyone rushes into a tight circle, their heads huddled together. Hazel sneaks closer, pulling on Sky's arm to follow her and they plop themselves down on a bench as closest to them as possible, catching a few lines here and there
"We didn't tell them?"
" ... not like we can.
"We just met them ..."
"I think we can trust them and ..."
" ... and Chanyeol sent one of them to a hospital and ..."
"Yeah, she saved my life."
"Should we tell them?"
The tight-knit group reaches a consensus and gathers around the two girls in their amicable, knowing silence. Hazel assumes that Joonmyun, one on the shorter end of the height spectrum and looks probably the least harmless with a round face and a child's haircut, runs the operation, the ringleader, as he establishes eye contact the foreigners with a solemn face, devoid of any emotions. "We decided to tell you and Sky the truth about us. It's only fitting to tell you both of who we really are."
"You're not some sort of secret agents, are you?" Hazel asks, earning herself a sharp elbow in the gut by Sky.
Everyone laughs, a trickle of the previous easygoing setting hanging in the air, as Joonmyun continues. "No, unfortunately, we're not, although it would be a lot cooler."
"Is there some sort of Korean mafia?"
"Hazel!"
"Sorry."
After the second round of chuckles and giggles dissipates, the utter ambiguity goes away shortly after, replaced by somberness. "The twelve of us are trainees under a Korean music company, if you don't know. We all have prepared and working hard for the day we will début onto the music scene. Many of us trained for several years, a few trained for even longer. The night we ran into both of you, we were on our way to celebrate with dinner because our company told us that they're forming a new male group with all of us. However, since Chanyeol, Jongin, Jongdae, Yixing, and Luhan got injured, especially Chanyeol with his sprained ankle, they came to us and told us that our début will be delayed."
Hazel furrows her eyebrows together, her eyes full of sympathy. "Wow, I'm sorry that happened to you guys."
"Don't worry about it," Sky flashes an encouraging smile. "In the end, you guys will début, so it's okay, right?"
A communal gesture of nods and agreement spreads, gently eroding away the grim atmosphere. Joonmyun shakes their hands one by one, his own smile stretching his lips. "Oh, I just realized that, you probably don't know who we all are. It's a little hard to tell us apart."
They shake their heads at the same time. "Oh no, we definitely know everyone," Hazel quickly says, stumbling over her Korean and earning a few laughs. "It's very nice to meet all of you."
"Wait a second," an unfamiliar face pops out of the group, and pushes till he's standing right in front of the girls, who look upon him questionably. Dark, unnatural brown hair tucked underneath a bright red baseball cap, his cute, boyish features lit up with his cheeky grin as he continues in a half-joking way. "Do you guys know who I am?
Sky thinks thoughtfully for a second. "Oh, you must be Baekhyun then. Chanyeol talked about you and -"
"Hey, wait a second!" Hazel cuts her off, jumping onto her feet as she glares at him. You were the guy who was shouting while we were in the emergency room!"
He takes a step back as the others were whooping with laughter. "Hey, you were the girl in my way when I was making my, uh, dramatic exit."
"Dramatic exit, my ass," she shoots back. "You were like a child throwing a tantrum."
"YAH, you little -"
Skyla promptly pulls her volatile best friend down back on the bench while their newfound friends absorb Baekhyun back among them to dissipate the tension. She casts a serious look towards Hazel Chen, her eyebrows furrowed as she keeps her grip on the latter's wrist, just in case.
"What was that about?"
Hazel pushes her bangs back, her eyes squinting and biting the insides of her cheeks. "This Baekhyun kid was saying some pretty bullshity stuff on the night of the incident, saying how it's our fault that the guys got thrown in the hospital in the first place."
As she releases her grip, her hand finds its to the ends of her ponytail, tangling her slender fingers among her hair. Sky's wide eyes stare off into space for a moment before pulling words together for her response.
"Ah, I see ..." her voice trails off as she glances at Baekhyun, making sure that he catches the flash of hurt in her eyes before it disappears and her easy smile comes around. "Don't worry about it. Let's just relax and let it go, okay?"
The boys fall back into their easy chatter from before, their appetite still intact and even though the mood dampened from the realization of their troubled début, laughter and antics never really go away as these twelve boys of different sizes pick up right where they left. Some of them begin to siphon the hot water to use for the ramen, noisily arguing for their preferences and spilling the liquid everywhere. Tao pours the boiling liquid carefully into the the packaged, crab-flavored ramen bowl that Hazel had misread which he had secretly bought, grabs a set of chopsticks and presenting it in a mock-grand fashion to her. Speechless, she stutters over her response and he laughs out of secondhand embarrassment, settling it in her hands and heading back to mingle with his friends before Hazel can take off after him when she finally recognizes the label.
Meanwhile, Chanyeol hobbles over to Sky, hopping up on the picnic table that she's sitting on top of and thoughtfully chewing a piece of the pork that she managed to snatch from Sehun's plate. She scoots over for room.
"Here, I brought you some more meat," Chanyeol says, maneuvering his chopsticks from his full plate to hers so fast that her grip almost slips.
"Ah, thank you, Chanyeol," she says, regaining her balance as she swallows her food. "You guys are so fun to be around, huh?"
"Yeah, these guys are like my brothers." Showing off his pearly white teeth to her puts Sky at ease for some reason and she can't help but return the favor.
"You always smile so much," Skyla remarks.
"Eh, is that so? I don't notice it anymore."
"Are you always like this?"
"What, smiling and happy and stuff? Pretty much. You know what they call me?" Chanyeol puffs up his chest pompously. "The Happy Virus."
She chokes on her food, coughing as she manages to say, "Really? The 'Happy Virus'?"
"Yeah," he laughs.
"That's a dumb nickname."
"Wait, what?"
"No, nothing, it's great - not really - but it's great, I promise."
Chanyeol bumps his shoulder into hers as she laughs, the kind of laughter that contort every possible feature of her face and she hides her toothy grin behind her pale hand, tension dispersing from her shrugged shoulders from her pain-tinged back and the cold numbing her face disappears faintly, in that moment. Skyla Lin feels at ease with this kind character and begins to question him on how exactly contagious his smiling disease is. He scoffs, playfully insulted that she's concerned about smiling too much. Sky observes. This is such a peculiar situation, eating spiced boiled meat on one of the most frigid nights she's ever faced.
"Are you cold?" his deep voice asks warmly.
"Not really, why?"
"You keep shivering, like you shake your whole body like this." He imitates a cell phone on vibrate.
"What the - get out of here," she blurts out, sitting up straight and keeping herself very still. "It's not weird, okay? Everyone does it."
"I don't think people do it like you do," Chanyeol teases, laughing a bit. "B-but don't worry, it's kind of cute in a way."
She rolls her eyes. "Smoooooooooth."
"I'm not joking."
The attention of the recipient of his well-intended words becomes held by her best friend who comes back bouncing back to her, informing of how late it has gotten and how they must return to the hotel. Goodbyes and farewells buzzes around and Skyla could have sworn that the parting had taken a lot longer than the real dinner itself, waving and smiling and repeating herself over and over.
But before she catches something out of the corner of her sharp eye, and the corners of her mouth twitches: the subtle parting between Hazel Chen, fingers running through her hair cascading down her back and fixing her glasses nervously but her smile lingers, and Tao, a grin that stretches from ear to ear full of an air that she couldn't put a word to as he towers over her and makes her laugh. Her other hand placed on his arm for a second too long, their eyes crinkled with warmth, and their bodies leaning a little too close, everything is slightly out-of-place, out of normality, and shifted too off to be something dismissed, trivial. The moment shared by these two disappears as quickly as it came with the intrusion of Kris stepping in, slipping in between and insures a promise from Hazel to keep in contact before dragging Tao away, who barely contains his surprise and bites back his protests.
The girls leave, puffs of their icy breaths dissipating as they hurry, encouraged by the frigid chill, to move quickly. Hazel trails behind, nagging at her friend to slow the hell down. Skyla didn't, her lips pressed together mischievously as the cold graze against her bare face and the wind weaving through her gathered loose sChends.
The playfulness travels to her eyes as they fly through the streets of Seoul.
"Man, Baekhyun is so dumb," Hazel grits her teeth as she flops herself onto her own bed, sinking into its soft embrace face-first. She rolls over onto her back like a starfish, her baggy gray T-shirt and matching sweatpants allowing much movement as she habitually fixes her askew glasses and her fingers toying with the loose strands from her piled-up, messy bun. But her expression can kill a man or two. "He didn't even try to deny it, acting like it's some stupid big joke. It irritated me, goodness. It wasn't even our fault, man."
Skyla pokes her head out of the bathroom with a toothbrush in hand, her brown hair blow-dried and touching her shoulders, and contacts swapped for large black frames perched on her small nose, as she shrugs. "Yeah, I don't know why he would even try," she says, muffled by the scrubbing of her teeth, "but he seems to be a nice kid."
"That's what you always say and they always turn out to be giant buttheads in the end."
A downcast look flashes in Sky's eyes, enough to be noticed but not enough to be given much thought, as she stops mid-brush, gripping the hard plastic surface of the toothbrush as words of the accusations made by her friend and the hard fact that the accused did not in fact even deny it pierces through her mind. He had played it off. It shouldn't be a big deal to him. It wasn't his feelings getting hurt in the end anyways. That's her responsibility now. Hazel's right; Skyla Lin had really done nothing wrong. She wanted to save that bumbling, sweet idiot named Chanyeol first.
"Uh, Sky, your toothbrush is at a weird angle."
She takes the toothbrush out of her mouth. Bent at the place where her fingers tightened, it hangs awkward and crooked. "Oh, wow, yeah, it does hang at a weird angle." Skyla continues to brush her teeth. "Well, it's easier to reach the back." She nonchalantly drifts back into the bathroom, humming a stares at the bathroom door, still sprawled out on the bed, then slowly craning her neck around to inspect the hotel room. It's a typical setting of two single beds against a wall, a worn leather couch covered in their respective possessions propped up against the wall, and the best part is the blinded floor-to-ceiling window that reveals illuminated and lively city. Not even a second later, Skyla pokes her head out again, her face contorted with signature playfulness and her odd toothbrush still dangling from her lips. "Sooo, how's Tao?"
Her voice comes out flat. "What."
Sky draws out her words, her sneaky smile creeping on her face. "You knooooow. I saw you guys getting pretty close with each other, if you know what I mean."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Unnecessary high-pitched giggles trails in her absence as Skyla finishes up her nighttime bathroom routine and flops onto the bed next to Hazel, who pushes herself to a sitting position, her glasses doing nothing to hide the scowl etched on her face.
"Here we go again." Hazel rolls her eyes as she wraps herself in the thick white blanket like a cocoon. "I just met the guy, Sky."
"If I can remember correctly, you were gushing over just how cute he was on the first night we met him and Kris," her best friend articulates slyly.
Her cheeks slowly turning a shade of deep pink, Hazel opens her mouth to protest and quickly purses them back together. "T-that does not mean aaaaanything, okay? You know, I find a lot of guys cute."
"And how many of them have you gone on a rendezvous through the city of Seoul in search of junk food for a long time? And, also, how many of them have you given your scarf to? Hazel, that's the only scarf you brought to Korea."
"I can just buy another one, no big deal."
"That's your favorite one."
Hazel sighs and chucks the nearest pillow across the room, knocking over a Skyla Lin engrossed in her own tinkling laughter bouncing off the walls as she nearly rolls off the bed. The lightheartedness becomes contagious and soon, both doubled over in sheer laughter for no reason, the joviality of the moment gripping their rationality. Hazel's on the verge of sound like a seal when Sky's own glasses goes flying and she falls off her own bed too.
When they reorient themselves, situated and nestled into the surprising comfiness of their sleeping places, Hazel, back to her starfish form, pipes up excitedly.
"So, I think we just met some K-pop idols today."
"What's a K-Pop?"
"Do you really not know what K-Pop is? Where is your Asian pride? It's short for Korean pop music and we met some Korean pop stars today and I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW YOU'RE NOT AS EXCITED AS I AM."
"Hazel, I was just joking and -"
Her words are cut off as Hazel leaps from bed to bed, almost landing on top of her friend with her face flushed with enthusiasm, her annoyance at Baekhyun long tucked away."And man, I'm just putting this out there: they are all really attractive."
Sky smiles slyly. "Even Baekhyun?"
Maybe not that long tucked away. Hazel's expression becomes clouded and she laughs, nudging her in the ribs before moving herself so she faces Hazel completely. "To be fair, we have stumbled onto a landmine of good-looking guys. It's not something you see everyday."
"Which of the guys do you like? Only the faces, nothing else."
"Uh, definitely not Tao, he's all yours. Actually, remember the guy that asked us if we could speak in Chinese? After the incident?"
"Oh yeah, I remember, his name's Luhan. He's pretty cute, not going to lie, but he can definitely pass off as a girl if he tried."
Sky snickers, waving it off. "That's so true, but still, he's a really nice guy too. There's just something about him ..."
Her best friend raises an eyebrow curiously, the corners of her mouth twitching and bursting to show a grin. "Now, you can't make fun of me and Tao anymore when you also got a little crush up your sleeve."
The one with the dark brown hair rolls her eyes, hugging a pillow to her chest. "I only find him as a cute guy, nothing more. I'm not going to throoow myself after him. The chances of that happening is the same of you getting together with Murder Eyes."
Again, Hazel's expression becomes clouded and she kicks Sky, loudly protesting such an event, her annoyance returning as she fumbles over her words, her lips pressed into a hard line. "Yah, you should be nicer to me, Skyla. Why are you so mean?"
"Technically, I'm a year older than you, and since we're in Korea, I don't have to be nice to my dongsaeng. You have to call me unnie."
"Over my dead body, I will."
"I can arrange that."
Hazel smacks her with a pillow. "How about no?"
Her best friend laughs, her eyes crinkling as she falls over and nestles into the bed. "Okay, seriously, let's get to bed. A whole day of hospital mischief, getting kicked to the curb, and then having dinner of boiled meat and lettuce in the middle of the park with twelve good-looking, nice guys can put a drain on someone."
"Yeah, sure," Hazel leaps to her bed, landing in a pile of blankets and pillows and submerging underneath them. "Oh, hey, is your back feeling better? I know the doctor talked about you being in good condition and prescribed you painkillers but you have to come back for a check-up soon."
Sky shrugs as she gets up to turn off the lights, the room only illuminated now by the lamp on their shared nightstand. Each step she takes sends a sharp jab at her spine, but now dulled by the pills taken several minutes ago and walking had become bearable at least. "I think it's working," she answers truthfully, kicking off her slippers and climbing into bed. "Just got to keep taking it and I will be fine -" An enormous yawn erupts that it feels like her head has been split in half as she turns off the lamp, the room plunging into pitch-blackness. Only the city lights peek through the blinds, its small doses of light dotting paths in the dark. "Okay, for real, good-night and try not to snore."
"Whoa, hey, I don't snore."
"That's not what it sounded like last night.
"Shut up, Sky."
Her friend's already knocked out of consciousness before she could even formulate a proper reply. Hazel places her glasses on the nightstand before curling up in a ball, tucked underneath the blankets like a cocoon of warmth. She blinks a few times and closes her eyes, the image of a boyish smile accompanied with such soft eyes dancing underneath her eyelids. Hazel smiles as she takes her own departure into dreamland.
Suddenly, the most obnoxious sound of a bird chirping goes off right next to her head.
Hazel sits up right away, her light-sleeper tendencies jolting her back from her slumber. "What the hell?!"
It's coming from Sky's phone on the nightstand, the bright screen illuminated with the notification of several text messages coming in, chirping loudly with each one. But Sky continues to stir in her sleep, mumbles some incoherent words before flipping to the other side, already lost to the world and leaving her disgruntled companion to deal with it.
"Who the hell is texting at this hour?" Hazel grumbles, jerking her friend's phone from the charger and squinting at the screen, bypassing the predictable passcode and the conversation thread shows up. Suddenly, her eyes widen and she gasps, flying out of bed and turning on the lights.
"Sky, wake up right now!" But the addressed sleeps so well that anyone could probably throw her off the balcony and she still wouldn't wake up. Hazel hops onto Sky's bed, grabs her by the shoulders and begins to violently shake her. "Wake up, wake UP!"
Eyes slightly cracked open and a frown etched onto her face. "Who do you think you are?" Sky says quietly, dragged from her peaceful sleep and pushing herself to an upright position. "What is it?"
Hazel grins, maniacal, and shoves the phone back into the owner's hands. "Answer your phone, woman! A K-pop star has contacted you!"
"What are you talking about?"
And then, Skyla Lin glances down at her phone and a few seconds past as her eyes adjust to the name printed across the top of the text messages. Her voice catches in her throat and she forces it out, her lips slowly forming the words, bringing it to reality."
"It's ... Luhan ..."