n i n e t e e n

Sun made it to their meeting place without taking notice of the person walking several feet behind her, always turning on the same streets, watching her from a distance. Yixing's eyes narrowed as he squinted to see someone off in the distance that seemed to stop and hide behind the trunk of a tree. His eyes widened in surprise as he said to her, "Jagi, you were being followed."

She gasped and looked behind to see there was no one.

"Behind those trees." He gestured along a row of trees that led to a walking trail in the park next to the river. "Wait here. I'm gonna go check it out." He took a few steps in the direction which she came from. As he passed her, he pressed his cold lips to her cheek. It was a chilly night and he had been waiting about fifteen minutes for her. Sun turned in the direction that he was walking and watched with worry as he slowly walked down the line of trees, looking for the person who was spying on them.

He did that about three times and turned up with nothing. There was no one there. He returned to her side and heaved a sigh. "I swear I saw someone, jagi."

She cupped his face in her hands and said to him sweetly. "Its like two in the morning. Maybe you're tired, baobei."

His expression relaxed into a smile. "Maybe."

"Get plenty of sleep on the airplane later." She recommended, looking up into his dark brown eyes. Yixing wasn't very tall--one of the shortest in EXO--but he was still a good few inches taller than Sun, which made him feel more tall than he really was.

He kissed her softly on the lips as he assured, "I'll try."

"I feel like I haven't seen you in ages." She told him, something she seemed to tell him quite often.

"That's because you really haven't seen me in ages." He pointed out, his words rather guarded even though she knew the point he was trying to make. He paused for a brief moment before he found himself blurting out his nest words, "I don't want to get into an argument, jagi. Especially tonight that I'm leaving Korea for two weeks. But have you thought about making our relationship public yet?"

Sun's expression dropped and she looked away from him, even pulling a few steps back. "Yixing...lets not have that talk today." He felt so strongly about their topic--about their love--that they always ended up in an argument afterwards. He didn't understand that she wanted to save them the repercussions of disobeying the rules put into place by their agencies. He wanted the two of them to be happy. She wanted the two of them to be that and successful in their careers. At that point it seemed like it would be one or the other. If she wanted to be with Yixing, she needed to be brave and give up everything else.

"Then when?" He eyed her, genuinely wondering when it would be okay for them to talk about being together in public. When they would announce it to everyone, including their respective agencies.

She bit down on her lip nervously, but said nothing in response.

"Am I wrong to want to kiss you in public? To want to hold your hand? To want to hold you in my arms? Even complimenting you in public isn't allowed. We have to be always fighting against each other." He asked her several questions, his eyes searching for he gaze, while she was trying so hard to avoid his. She had explained it to him countless times, and she knew he was right to press her about it. But each time they talked about it, she could almost physically feel their relationship breaking, chipping at the edges. "Tell me why I have to settle for being with you secretly. I'm slowly growing tired of this, Mae." He admitted.

"Soon Yixing." She assured for about the hundreth time.

"How soon is soon? I need a real answer, a time frame, a date. Something." He pressed. "We're about to have our first year anniversary in a few months, and we won't get to celebrate it properly because no one even knows about us."

Suddenly feeling small, she found herself muttering, "Every time we talk about this, we end up in a fight."

"Because we have different views regarding what soon means. To me, soon was a few weeks. A few months even. Not years." He said.

"Please." She begged. "Lets not do this today. I still need more time. But it'll be by the end of this year, I promise." There were still five months left in the yea, which would give her plenty of time to gather her strength and her courage to fight against the hatred that SM and Pledis had for each other. Though in that time--with the way she and Yixing were disagreeing each time they saw each other in person--she feared that there would no longer be a relationship to fight for.

-

They managed to calm down long enough to spend some time together and walk around the park hand in hand. Yixing told her about China and all the things he missed and she made him promise to bring her back a souvenir. She had a key locked box underneath her bed where she kept the little presents he brought back for her from each of his trips outside of Korea. She always did the same for him as well.

After about an hour together, they said goodbye and returned to their respective dorm buildings in town. Sun snuck back into the building and climbed the stairs to her floor. When she reached the door to the floor where she loved with her unnies, she was startled to see Aron standing by her door. He was leaning against the wall and his arms crossed over his chest. When he saw her approaching he pushed himself off the wall and began in a knowing voice, "The Baby Lips maknae has so many secrets." He clicked his tongue in a teasing manner at her.

"What are you doing here?" She asked him with a tired sigh.

"I saw you talking with him down by the river." He informed her without beating around the bush.

Her eyes widened in horror and she shot a hand out to clamp over his mouth. At the same time her other arm went to press against his neck, restraining his air supply. It was a self-defense move she had learned at a seminar offered by her high school. Up until now, they had really come in handy.

"Don't talk so fucking loud." She hissed at him.

She released her grip on his neck and he coughed, doubling over as he tried to catch his breathing. Sun grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the lounge room that was empty since it was around three in the morning. 

Locking the door behind them, Aron continued coughing, "You should have become a martial arts champion."

Sun rolled her eyes and gave him a warning. "I also learned a move that will make you pass out for twenty minutes. Don't test me, Aron." It was a move in which she only needed to pinch a nerve near his clavicle and he would be out cold. It was her favorite move, but she hadn't been able to use it on anyone yet.

He raised his arms up in defense. "Fine. Don't become a martial arts champion."

"You said you saw me." Her voice lowered towards the end of her sentence. He must have been the person Yixing saw when they met up. He had mentioned he thought someone was following her.

He nodded and continued nonchalantly after regaining his breathing. "I couldn't sleep, and I happened to be looking out my window when I saw you leave the building. So I decided to follow you. You really are dating that EXO guy. You're going to get in so much trouble when the managers find out." His last sentence sounded more amused than anything, like he was waiting for it all to unravel so that he could sit and watch like another spectator. 

"You can't tell anyone." She said. 

"Or what?" He challenged.

"I'll kill you." She warned, eyes darkening as the thought crossed her mind for an instant. Remembering a warning from her self defense training, she informed him, "That move that can make you pass out, can also kill you if I want it to." To get the person to merely pass out, she had to pinch that nerve for five seconds. Any more than than was enough to kill a person.

He didn't want to test his luck. Instead, he told her, "I won't tell anyone, but I do need you to do me a favor."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"I need you to help me find this girl I knew when I lived in Los Angeles." He began to explain, hoping to convince her if he told her the story. "Her name is Allisson Marie Lugo. She was my girlfriend and I really loved her. But when I joined Pledis, they forced me to break up with her, so I did. Then I moved to Korea and I never saw her again. I tried to contact her, but my sister said her family moved away. I just want to find her and tell her that I'm sorry and that I should have fought harder for our love." Sun felt a pang in her heart. What if she waited too long? Would her love suffer the same fate? She didn't even want to think it.

The Baby Lips maknae heaved a sigh. "I'm not a private detective."

"But your dad is." He pointed out, which caught her off guard. It was true. But she never told him that, and she didn't even know anything about his life, yet he was knowing those kinds of details about her. 

She sighed. "Fine. I'll put you in contact with him."

He added more conditions. "And he can't tell anyone he's working for me."

"Of course." Sun would agree to anything in order to keep her secret hidden for the time being. Besides, helping Aron was for a good cause. 

"Thanks Mae." He smiled at her for the first time, a real smile, and pulled her in for an awkward hug.

-

Sun went to sleep after her talk with Aron and made a mental note to contact her dad. She had hardly seen her family in the last few years since she joined Pledis, and she felt bad that she would be contacting them now to ask for a favor. But her parents had been against her dreams of becoming a musician. They told her that they knew the life of the idols and that they hardly got any time to themselves, spending their entire lives slaving away for a company who would use them until they had nothing more to give. 

She had left her house one day, not exactly on bad terms, but not on good terms either. 

The next morning she was woken up by Minnie climbing onto her bed and jumping up and down with excitement. "Maknae wake up! Guess who came to visit us." On her face was a wide grin, and Sun wondered more than anything how Minnie even got in the room.

She was happy to see Minnie though, since in the upcoming week, the Baby Lips M member would be travelling to Latin America to personally attend shows in order to promote her solo album. It was already getting a strong following and skyrocketing sales in Mexico because her boyfriend was promoting her like crazy, and so were his footballer friends.

Sun sat up in bed and wiped the tiredness from her eyes.

Her door was open and standing in the doorway were two older girls which she instantly recognized. Sun almost fell out of her bed as she shouted happily, "Oh my gosh, Yeojin unnie! Chaewon unnie! What brings you here to see us?" The two were label mates of Baby Lips under Pledis Entertainment, but Yeojin and Chaewon belonged to a girl group called Roser-lo. Their group had debuted around eight years prior.

Yeojin smiled at her and gave a small shrug of her shoulders. "We have so much free time on our hands now. We thought we would visit our little sisters."

"We were forced to go on a hiatus." Chaewon admitted.

-

another update for this stoy and we see how sun and yixing's relationship is slowly going down the drain because she's too afraid to come out with their relationship. but then i had them make up before he left bc i think relationships are also about putting the effort to make things better when they're not so great. we're just about to hit the middle of the story so its going to start getting more dramatic as problems unfold and all that.

and now we have aron trying to blackmail sun into helping him find his true love. so sad. that martial arts move though...the one she mentions. i made it up ^.^ lol

finally, i mentioned characters that are bandry's ryeongnim's intelectual property. the reason why i did this is bc her story "hit me up" is a spin off to this, but based off super junior's ryeowook ^.^ so go check it out if you like them <3

i hope you're all liking the story. thank you for reading! have a wonderful week.

-clary