e i g h t e e n

For a month after the awards show, Sun and Yixing barely spoke to each other. He had his own commitments with SM Entertainment, while Sun had her own with Pledis Entertainment. They were unable to see each other, even in the middle of the night because often their schedules had them out until the early morning hours. Sun had to spend most of her free time with Aron, which left her with no time to even send her real boyfriend text messages.

Yixing often tried to start up conversations with her, but was dismayed when she would take several hours, at one point even a few days to reply. He shrugged it off as the busy schedule he knew she had as an idol, especially with the upcoming music video Baby Lips was going to film for the single Sweet of their repackaged album.

EXO was doing the same, having arduous dance practices for the filming of Growl, which would be the single for their repackaged version. In many ways, Baby Lips really was like a female version of EXO, and vice versa. They were always doing the same things, and always competing in everything because of it. 

Sun was having lunch with Aron in the lunch room of the Pledis Building for show. Normally, she sat with Baby Lips and Aron with Nu'est. But ever since their kiss on stage, and the buzzing speculation that they were an item, their Pledis managers encouraged them to spend all their time together. Sun and Aron only did it out of obligation, and she was getting tired of being forced to pretend she was having a great time with him. The news hadn't yet been confirmed by the agency. They told the two idols that they didn't want to seem too eager in the media's eyes, and they were going to wait a bit more before finally announcing it.

The two tried to make conversation with each other, but when it fell into a silence, Sun got her phone out and searched her boyfriend's name in the search bar. Zhang Yixing. Nowadays she found out more about him and his whereabouts from the kpop gossip news sites than from his own account. 

One of the most recent news stories was about EXO-M and Sun clicked on it when the title grabbed her attention. 

EXO-M to participate in Chinese game show called  "Do Your Best!", Sun read the title of the article and she sucked in a breath, surprised at what she was reading, and rather disappointed. Instead of hearing the news from Yixing--who was her boyfriend, and her best friend--she had to find out through allkpop. 

As she continued reading the article, she found that he would be out of the country for two weeks while filming for the show. In those two weeks, they would promote the comeback album in China and appear in some variety shows other than Do Your Best! to create a hype for the upcoming showcases, and the album. Sun was happy for him because she knew that EXO-M was more often than not ignored by SM Entertainment. EXO-K was given more promotions and more opportunities. 

At least, Mae was thankful that Pledis was more fair when it came to the two subgroups of Baby Lips. Both groups promoted equally when they were together, and when they were separate, promotions were still equal. Even when Baby Lips M did promotions in Japanese, English, Spanish, or any other language that wasn't Korean or Chinese, the agency tried to include the other girls, even if they weren't part of the foreign language subgroup. 

Closing out of the internet page, she opened up her text conversations. She clicked on the one with the contact name Baobei, and typed out a text message.

sun: yixing wth?

sun: allkpop.com/exo-m-to-participate-in-chinese-game-show

sun: i had to find out through allkpop :(

baobei<3: ah jagi :(

baobei<3: i swear we just found out like yesterday

baobei<3: sorry <3

sun: baobei fuck i miss you so much...

baobei<3: dont curse jagi <3 

baobei<3: miss you too :)

sun: like honestly, aron is nice and all but 

having to spend EVERY moment with him istorture

sun: so done with pledis ent, with aron, with

being an idol...ugh.

sun: lets run away to the country side, get

married and have eleven kids!! <3 aha :D

baobei<3: lets move to china :D

baobei<3: its big and they'll never find us

baobei<3: eleven kids tho :O haha

sun: dumb little dreams, baobei. but they

make me happy <3

sun: lets meet up @ the usual place so we 
can say goodbye :(

baobei<3: sure jagi 

baobei<3: cant wait to hold you in my arms
and kiss your lips <3

Sun was pulled back to her reality by Aron who cleared his throat to get her attention. "Why are you smiling like that?" He asked her, eyeing Sun with suspicion. In that moment it barely dawned on her that she was smiling at her cellphone screen like an idiot. She tried to force the smile away, but the conversation with Yixing was still fresh in her mind and his texts had managed to send a million butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

With a shake of her head and an awkward cough, she told him, "I saw a really funny post on social media."

"You know," Aron quickly dropped the subject and commented on something else casually. "The managers said they scheduled for us to appear on a radio show together to talk about the new single. The sales have been really good apparently."

Sun nodded, "Yeah. That's great."

"Its tonight." He informed her.

As long as we get back in time for me to go see Yixing, I don't care when we go there, she thought to herself. Every time either she or her boyfriend traveled, they made it a point to see each other the night before to say goodbye. She wasn't going to stop that habit, especially when she was already having to spend every free moment of her time with Aron.

-

It wasn't until ten thirty at night that Aron and Sun were summoned from their dorms to follow the managers out to a waiting car. Lina was accompanying Sun, since the other girls had no other commitments that day--other than Minnie who was set to do a live broadcast for the release of her solo album The Sounds of My Country in Latin America by SM Entertainment in a partnership with Televisa Music and Warner Music Mexico for the Latin American distribution and promotion rights. Aron was accompanied by his own manager and the four set out at night to the press building for the radio show Idol Lounge. 

They arrived within twenty minutes, and Sun had spent the car ride watching Minnie's twitcam from the lounge room of their floor. She was submitting silly questions for her friend to read aloud and laugh to, since it there were comments allowed for a question & answer segment.

"Do you like cheese?" Minnie squinted her eyes as she read a question off the screen. "Submitted by blm_sunshine..." Her expression changed into a look of fake annoyance at her group mate when she recognized the username. Quickly returning to a smile, she waved at the camera, "The maknae is watching right now--hola bontia--and she wants to know if I like cheese. To answer your question, Sun, yes. I love cheese, especially that four cheese Mexican blend that you can only get in USA or Mexico. Sigh...Moving on." A giggle escaped her lips.

Sun's lips formed into a smile as she watched her group mate on the screen.

The car parked in a lot specially designated for guests and the four got out, walking into the building. They were led up to the seventh floor and into one of the radio show cabins once they were instructed to do so.

Lina and Aron's manager waited for them outside and the two entered the room with the radio host. He introduced himself and handed them a sheet of paper with the topics that were going to be talked about, almost like a script. In the top corner of the room was a camera, filming everything and next to it was a sign that informed it was for their youtbube broadcasts. Sun's eyes scanned over the script and she saw typed out on there Pepero game. 

She gulped back, hoping they would run out of time so that she could avoid it.

The radio interview was around a half hour long, and she figured only small segments would be shown on air. The rest would probably used for the youtube broadcast part.

They talked about the single, how it was working together, and Aron was his usual only-in-front-of-the-cameras charming self. He mentioned that it was an honor working with Sun, how they really seemed to connect. Sun tried not to roll her eyes. It had been completely opposite. They didn't exactly fight or not get along, but there had been a lot of artistic clashing when writing the song for the awards show. When Sun was asked about it, all she could do was agree with Aron that it had been a wonderful experience because it was what she had been instructed by her manager to say.

The radio host then tried to get them to open up about their speculated relationship after their kiss shared at the Gaon awards. But both of them refused to speak about it. Sun was especially embarrassed, since it had happened so suddenly, with Aron taking the initiative. 

Finally, as they reached the end of their interview and Sun thought she would get off free, the host remembered they had planned for them to play the Pepero game together. As they went to a commercial break, someone entered the cabin with a tray of assorted Pepero biscuits. There were every flavor from chocolate to green tea to cookies n'creme. Aron grabbed a chocolate one off the tray and ate it. The host joked, "Those are not for you to eat, they're so you can play the Pepero game."

When they returned from the commercial break, the host explained the rules of the game. "Its simple." He said, grabbing one of the Pepero sticks in his hand. "Unfortunately for our radio listeners, this segment is going to be unavailable, but you can watch it on our youtube channel. But two people play the game. You take a Pepero stick and hold it between the two of you, in your mouth. You bite the stick until it gets smaller and smaller. The objective is to leave two centimeters between the two of you. If the stick breaks, its over."

He offered the tray to the two idols and Aron gestured for her to choose which one she wanted. Sun hesitantly picked up a strawberry one and held one end between her lips. Aron leaned in and held the other end between his lips. Sun felt herself going red in the face that close proximity because she knew there was a chance Yixing would be watching.

The host gave the signal and both began to bite the Pepero stick. Sun was more slow and taking tiny bites into her mouth while Aron showed to be more eager. There were about two centimeters left and when the stick broke, Aron continued inching forward until their lips met in a kiss. Sun closed her eyes tight and crinkled up her nose as she felt Aron's lips on hers, but her gesture ended up looking like she was shy to kiss him.

They pulled away with Aron swallowing the half of the biscuit and Aron licking his lips with satisfaction. 

"You were supposed to leave two centimeters at the end." The radio host reminded them with a knowing smile. "But that was good too, I guess."

Minutes later, they finished filming their segment and headed back to the Pledis dorms, at which they arrived around midnight. By that time, her group mates were already in bed and fast asleep. Sun changed into something comfortable and dark colored, so that she wouldn't be seen as easily as she snuck her way to the Han river to meet with her boyfriend.

What she didn't realize was that she was being followed.

-

a new chapter posted today. i had to put "replacement" on hold as well bc in both "sasaeng" and replacement, other things happen that are supposed to happen here first. and i think they won't happen for another three to four chapters.

anyway, i hope you like the update, and thank you loads for reading and supporting me.

it means a lot. have a wonderful weekend!

-clary xx