t h i r t e e n

Sun arrived at their meeting place first, since she left her dorm building first, and its location was slightly closer to the Han River than the SM building was. She waited for around fifteen minutes before he arrived. Like the first time, he had attempted to surprise her by grabbing her around the waist and whispering into her ear. And like the first time, she resorted to hitting him before knowing who it was. This time she elbowed him in the gut and he fell to the floor by her feet. 

When she saw who it was, she brought her hands to her face and let out a gasp, "Damn it, baobei! Why do you have to surprise me like that? I'm on edge here." She scolded him, kneeling by his side to make sure he was okay.

Other that getting the wind knocked out of him, Yixing was fine. With his arms around himself, he said to her, "Sorry, jagi. Its just really funny to see your reaction." He let out a chuckle, but it was a rather breathless and pained one.

"Its not funny when I kung fu chop you into next week." She replied with worry lacing every word, unamused by the situation. Her hand went to touch the affected area and he winced slightly. But since there was nothing too serious about his injury, she helped him get back on his feet.

"Have you really studied martial arts?" He asked her, his hand still gripping his abdomen where her elbow made contact. His eyes were semi-closed in pain as he winced once more. "You really have a deadly strong arm."

"You deserved that." She blew a raspberry at him.

"Just a little." He agreed with her.

"So..." She began slowly, the atmosphere changing to something more serious as she continued to speak. "You wanted to talk to me about something, baobei?" 

She eyed him suspiciously, awaiting an answer.

He smiled wide with excitement, taking her by surprise. "I saw your press conference the other day on the television, where you talked about your secret boyfriend." Sun was confused. She remembered the interview, and she did remember mentioning a secret boyfriend. But there was no room for confusion because she remembered mentioning it was someone from the agency. 

Unless the media had cut down on her footage in order to save time. Then there would have been no way for Yixing to know that she wasn't talking about him.

Snapping her out of her thoughts, he continued, taking her hands in both of his. "Baby, I'm ready to let everyone know that we're in love. Who cares what our agencies, our groups, and our fans think? I would accept an suffering in life, as long as I can get through it with you." He brought her hands up to his lips and kissed them with so much love and conviction that it managed to break her heart into a million pieces.

Uh...I do, Sun couldn't help but thinking to herself.

She saw where he was going with this, but she was scared.

People wouldn't understand.

SM and Pledis just didn't get along. To even think that two of their idols were in love was something no one had thought of or even remotely considered.

"Will you do this with me?" He asked her, eyes full of hope.

Sun pulled her hands out of his grasp, already giving her answer before she even spoke. "I really want to, Yixing. You don't know how much I yearn for that." She said to him, remembering all the happy people she passed on the way from the airport to the dorm building once she returned from China that afternoon. She wanted that kind of freedom for herself and Yixing, but sadly they didn't have it. And daring to challenge their agencies was bound to have its negative consequences on their careers. Sun didn't want that for herself, and she didn't want that for Yixing who had worked even harder and sacrificed even more than she had in order to get where he was. 

After sucking in a nervous breath, she continued, "But you know we can't do that. At least not right now."

"But..." He argued, his happiness shattered by her words. "In your conference you hinted you would tell everyone. You hinted we would stop all of this fucking hiding."

"That wasn't me." She shook her head. "That was the agency."

"What do you mean?" He eyed her with a hurt confusion.

"They heard the rumors about us, and decided to start rumors of their own." She informed him, adding, "They want me to pretend to date Aron Kwak."

"What?" He asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

"They want me to pretend to date Aron Kwak." She repeated with her gaze trained on the ground.

How could she continue looking him in the face after telling him something like that?

"Where does that leave us?" He wondered, genuinely curious.

Sun brought her hands up to cup his face in her hands and forced herself to meet his eyes. They were red and glazed over, like he was trying to hold back tears. Sun was the same. Their conversation was beginning to feel like a goodbye, and that was the last thing she wanted. She loved Yixing, but she was afraid of the consequences if she rebelled against the agency that had given her everything. 

She had a career in music thanks to Pledis Entertainment.

"This leaves us right where we were already." She assured him, her voice cracking slightly. "Someday I'll be brave enough to carry myself through the consequences of loving you. Then we'll be able to tell everyone we're in love."

"I could carry both of us if you'd let me." He swore to her, grabbing her wrists and bringing her hands together to his lips. She could feel the cold trembling of them as it was taking all of his focus and control not to cry in front of her. He had never cried in front of Sun before because in their tradition, it wasn't manly for a male to cry. But it was taking all of his strength right then.

She shook her head. "When we do this, I want us to do it together, Yixing. And I'm not ready. I'm a coward, and I'm so sorry."

"You're only nineteen." He reasoned. "Its okay to be afraid of things when you're so young."

"But you're twenty one." She pointed out. "You're only two years older and you're much braver than I'll ever be."

"It was different for me. I left China at sixteen to join SM Entertainment. I had to grow up quickly, and I had to be brave if I wanted to survive in Korea on my own." Yixing explained.

Sun thought she could have never done what he did. She had debuted with Baby Lips at eighteen and had trained under Pledis Entertainment for about a year before her debut. She had never even auditioned or planned to audition. It had happened by chance when she was seventeen and went to the supermarket with her mother and sister. She was walking down an empty snacks aisle, pushing around the foot cart when she started humming a tune, eventually breaking out in song right then and there.

The person in the next aisle heard her--coincidentally it was Lina unnie--and offered her a contract with Pledis Entertainment. Sun had been one of the lucky ones who got in without an audition, while there were thousands who tried to get in.

Yixing had been under SM for five years, as opposed to her two under Pledis.

She couldn't just let all his sacrifice go to waste.

"Jagi, I'm not going to lie to you." He began with a sigh, once he was more composed. "I'm not thrilled about the idea of you pretending to date anyone. But I know this is temporary until you're ready to admit our relationship to the world. I'll wait." He assured her.

But Sun wasn't sure just how long he would wait for her before getting tired.

And she wouldn't blame him for it.

-

Yixing returned to the SM dorms by four thirty in the morning, sneaking into his room which he shared with Jongdae. At that moment, he was grateful that Jongdae was his room mate. He and Luhan were the group members who were most likely to be able to sleep through anything. He was sure that if a herd of elephants happened to stampede through the building, Jongdae and Luhan would probably sleep through it, in the middle of all the rubble and caving walls.

Tao and Minseok were the most light sleepers of the group. Even a fly buzzing would wake them. He was almost sure his walking--more like tiptoeing--down the hall to his room had woken them from their sleep.

He was exhausted and instead of changing into something more comfortable, he just stripped down to his boxers and climbed into bed after retrieving his cellphone from his jeans pocket. 

Opening a text conversation with Sun, he sent her a text to make sure she had gotten back to her own dorm okay.

yixing: jagi, u there?

jagiya<3: yea baobei <3

yixing: k just wanted to make sure u made it 
to ur dorm 

jagiya<3: so sweet my baobei

jagiya<3: & yes i made it back safe

jagiya<3: luv u

yixing: i love you more

jagiya<3: how much? hm? ;)

yixing: mm...from here to infinity.

jagiya<3: well ily more than that 

yixing: impossible

yixing: infinity never ends jagi

jagiya<3: then u can imagine just how

much more ily

yixing: i still think i love u more

jagiya<3: wanna fight me on this? lol

jagiya<3: u sure u wanna do that?

yixing: yes bt we'll have to save it for tomorrow
bc i know we both prob have busy schedules &
we need our sleep...

yixing: night <3

jagiya<3: night baobei :* ily

yixing: love you too

He set his phone faced down on the nightstand between his bed and Jongdae's, and closed his eyes, letting the possibility of sleep take him. But even with his being tired and having his eyes closed, he couldn't seem to fall asleep.

There was too much on his mind.

Most of his thoughts revolved around what Sun told him, about being forced to pretend she was in a relationship with Aron from Nu'est. Fake relationship or not, he just couldn't stomach the idea. He would still have to pretend to hate Sun, but then he's also have to see the pictures of her with another man. He would have to see her touching him, spending time with him, and maybe even kissing him while pretending he doesn't care about it. Pretending it wouldn't affect him.

He didn't know how he would possibly get through it without wanting to scream the truth out.

Yixing didn't want her to do that--leave their relationship in the shadows. He didn't want to continue being her secret. But he didn't want to pressure her into telling everyone either. She wasn't ready and he didn't want to force her.

It was then that more negative thoughts entered his mind.

She was nineteen, perhaps relationships weren't as serious to her at that age. Perhaps she would later get bored of him and come to the realization that they weren't worth all of that sacrifice.

But he didn't want to think about that.

He only wished for the best.

-

this update is a tiny bit shorter than my usual ones, but its been three days since i last updated this story. so i thought i would post something. 

i have school tomorrow and i honestly don't want to go. who does?

happy hispanic heritage month to all my latinos/hispanics. this is the month where we (most of the latin countries) decided to stop taking spain's shit, and did something about it, thus starting the revolutionary wars of independence in latin america. very historic month for my people. very proud to be mexian rn.

have a wonderful night!

-clary xx