t h i r t y e i g h t

Sun returned to her hotel room with tears streaming down her face. As she entered the room and shut the door, she found Minnie atop her bed, video chatting with her boyfriend Isaac. The smile on her face was wiped clean off and was replaced by concern when she saw Sun's expression. Pushing herself up to a sitting position on her bed, she said something to Isaac in Spanish, which Sun could mostly understand as her excusing herself because she wanted to talk to Sun. 

Her boyfriend nodded from the computer screen and said goodbye, wishing her good luck at the concert later that night. Minnie closed her laptop and held her arms open for her group mate. Whenever they traveled away from Korea, Minnie and Sun were always room mates. Whenever they were back in Korea, Sun always shared a room with Sarang. They were her two closest friends in the room and the managers thought it was a good idea for the maknae to share a room with group mates who were much older than her. That allowed them to keep an eye on her and make sure she behaved.

The maknae quickly ran into her embrace and hugged her tight. 

"What's wrong?" Minnie wondered, rubbing her hands down Sun's arms in a comforting way. 

"The managers of SM and Pledis said they support my relationship with Yixing." Sun explained to her, burying her face into Minnie's shirt. She wanted to hide from anything, to ignore it until it could go away. But as Sarang had explained to her before--sometimes you couldn't have everything. 

Confused, Minnie asked, "Isn't that a good thing? I thought you and him were secretly dating..."

With everything that was happening, Sun hadn't yet had the chance to tell Minnie the entire story. As far as anyone knew, Sun and Yixing were still together. A few months ago, she might have lied and let Minnie believe that she was still dating Yixing. But that was the Park Mae who lied and hurt people with her lies. Her resolution now was to tell the truth and avoid hurting people who didn't deserve to be hurt.

With a sigh, she continued to explain. "Min--Yixing and I aren't together anymore. He got tired of all my lies and putting off our relationship. I think he hates me now..." She trailed off as she remembered when she talked to him just moments ago in the hallway. The way he had been so cold towards her, and all the songs he had written about their relationship, calling her out for being a bad girlfriend. There was definitely resentment in him, that much was for sure, what she had yet to figure out was if he still loved her or not.

Minnie frowned. "I wish you hadn't kept all of that to yourself."

"I know." Sun nodded. "I'm sorry."

Her room mate shook her head. "Its none of my business what happens in your love life, so I'm not mad at you for not telling me. But I could have helped you get through this. You didn't have to do it alone."

"I was afraid that you and the other girls would take it badly." Sun told her. And she had been right in the end. Most of them still resented her for lying to them about it. 

The other girls who had taken Bom's side were slowly learning to get past it, and now it was mostly only Ara and Bom who disliked her. But their relationships were never the same after that. There had been a division between them and there wasn't the same level of car or trust between all of the members anymore. 

"Mae, just know that you don't have to do this." Minnie said to her, her words calm and soothing. "They shouldn't make you date him."

"Maybe if I go with it, Yixing will learn to forgive me when we've spent all that time together." Sun thought aloud in a hopeful tone.

Minnie crinkled up her nose, showing her evident dislike for the idea. "I don't think he hates you. I think he's just hurt and needs his own space to think about things. Letting the managers force you two together doesn't sound like the best idea to me. I think you both might end up actually hating each other."

"You're right." Sun finally agreed after a short pause. "I'm going to talk to Lina unnie and tell her I don't want to do this."

She thanked her friend with another squeeze, and hurried out of the room in search of her manager.

-

She ran down the hall toward the room where Lina was staying. Sun knocked on the door and waited for her manager to get it. When she opened the door, Lina rolled her eyes at her in annoyance, "What do you need now, maknae?" She asked her. In her hands was her cellphone and she was texting away, setting the final details for the concert that night.

"I just came to let you know that I'm not going to let you force me into another relationship." She said, suddenly full of bravery. 

There was nothing she wanted more than to be with Yixing. But she didn't want to be forced into it. She wanted to earn his forgiveness, to let him know that she would never act like that again, and that she wanted to start over. 

Lina sighed and stuffed her phone into her jeans pocket. She crossed her arms over her chest and shot the Baby Lips vocalist a glare. "I thought the relationship with that boy was what you wanted, Mae. You were the one sneaking around in the middle of the night to go meet with him." She accused. "We may have denied all of the rumors when they came out, but we aren't stupid. We know those pictures and footage weren't altered. You and that boy thought you could fool everyone, and now that we support you, you want out?" 

Sun knew Lina's words were hypocritical. Their support didn't come from the goodness of their hearts--because they wanted their idols to be happy. No. They were only supporting them now because it benefited them to have Sun and Yixing dating.

"Yixing and I broke up months ago, okay?" Sun explained to her, her tone taking on a note of frustration and annoyance. She hated having to tell Lina and the agency her personal problems which were her own to take care of. "I honestly think he hates me now because you and Pledis Entertainment forced me to tell all kinds of lies. He wants nothing to do with me, and forcing us into a relationship is going to have us at each other's throats." Though she knew her relationship with Yixing not working out was her fault, she also felt that the agency was to partially blame.

"As long as you pretend you love each other in public, I honestly couldn't care less what you two do." Lina informed her. 

"I refuse to do this." Sun stated firmly.

Knowing that the vocalist wouldn't be giving up so easily, Lina decided to take another path. She decided to convince her with a threat. "If you don't do this, the agency is going to disband Baby Lips. Is that what you want? Do you want the group to suffer because of you? And trust me, we'll find a way to end him too." She added, having noticed through Sun's words that she still cared about Yixing.

"Okay, fine!" Sun shouted at her manager. She didn't even have to think about it. The last thing she wanted was to cause more harm to the group and Yixing. "I'll follow your stupid game. I thought SM was bad, but you just might be the same--or worse." 

She stormed off back to her room where Minnie was once again video chatting with her boyfriend. Sun threw herself onto her bed and cried into her pillow. 

Minnie let her be for the time being. Sun stayed there for what felt like hours and she fell asleep. Minnie shook her awake hours later, informing her that she had to get in the shower before leaving for the concert venue. 

Sun grabbed her phone off the night stand, but was surprised when she saw a text from an unknown number. When she opened it, she saw that it was Yixing.

unknown: mae this is my new number

sun: what? who is this?

unknown: zhang yixing

sun: ...when did u change it?

yixing: when we broke up

He had probably gotten it so that he would no longer receive her texts and phone calls. That meant that for months, she had been sending messages that were never seen.

sun: oh...okay. 

sun: thx, i'll save it in my contacts

yixing: k

Sun stared back at her cellphone screen with the new contact name. No more baobei for now, but she would need to change it for the concert. 

-

♥105K likes

spark_bl: we don't have to hide our love anymore. with my ramyeon bf <3 #junmeyon #sarang a big hug and a thank you to all the people who supported our relationship. we are very grateful! :)

load comments...

pledis_ent liked spark_bl's photo.

babylips_mk liked spark_bl's photo.

exo_planet liked spark_bl's photo.

blm_sunshine liked spark_bl's photo.

Twenty more people you follow liked spark_bl's photo. See all here. 

Their announcement was scheduled to be given during that night's concert intermission where the girls would be stopping for a water break. Junmyeon and Sarang had announced their agencies' support of their relationship over social media with a picture which went viral, gaining over one hundred thousand likes in less than two hours.

They were standing around, taking sips of their water bottles when on the screen behind them on stage flashed at the same time that Sun felt her cellphone vibrate in her pocket. She got it out and looked at the screen to see incoming video call from 'baobei<3'. She had changed his contact name once again for their fake announcement. She hesitated for a moment and then his the answer button.

Immediately Yixing's smiling face was shown on the big screen and the fans at both venues started screaming with excitement. 

Yixing waved into his cellphone screen and in the background, she could see his group members. Some of them stood there shooting glares at her while Junmyeon waved at Sarang who was visible a few feet behind where Sun was standing.

"Hey jagiya." He greeted her, and for a moment she felt like she had gone back in time.

To that park where they'd meet in the middle of the night, back when he still loved her. 

"Baobei." She choked on the word.

"Are you ready to give our big announcement?" He asked her in Korean, with a smile playing on his lips which she knew was fake due to the cold way he regarded her earlier that day.

She nodded her head silently, the beating of her heart drowned out the sounds of screming fans from both sides.

"You start." He urged her, tugging on the collar of his t-shirt as though it were beginning to restrict his air supply. He and the other EXO boys had been wearing matching EXO Planet #1: The Lost Planet shirts for the concert. Sun and her group mates were wearing simple pink dresses with their Pink Ladies jackets over them. "I...don't know how to express my...my potato right now." 

The fans on both ends of the video call squealed with excitement and Sun could see Yixing's group mate Baekhyun approach him with an amused grin. Yixing couldn't understand everyone's reachtion at what he said until someone explained it to him.

"Hyung," He whispered to Yixing, though it could still be heard loudly through their microphones in the arena and the video call on Baby Lips' stage. "You just told everyone you can't express your potato." 

"No." Yixing shook his head. "I said I can't express my potato."

He said the same word again.

"Baobei," Sun cut in. "I think you mean gamjeong, not gamja."

He had been saying gamja--the Korean word for potato--which sounded similar to gamjeong--the Korean word for emotion.

"Gamjeong." He repeated. "That's what I said."

"You said gamja." Baekhyun insisted.

"Lets just get on with this announcement." Yixing pushed Baekhyun away playfully.

Taking in a deep breath, Sun began to give their announcement to the thousands of people watching them on stage--and many more who were watching them over television and live streams. "Zhang Yixing and I would like to announce that...we are in love. He is my boyfriend." The murmurs and delighted screams from the audience seemed to get louder as she gave her confession.

"Park Mae is the love of my life." Yixing added, fueling the fangirl screams from his audience as well as hers.

His words hurt her more because she wasn't sure if he meant them.

Just like with Aron, it was all an act.

-

countdown: three more updates for this story to end. i'm going to upload another one later tonight after the foorball games. i was going to upload this last night, but i was really sleepy. so i put it off. 

thank you all for the reads and the support. and thank you for the 5K reads on this story. it means so much to me! have a wonderful weekend!

and please excuse my bad photoshop skills. i say it alot but yeah. sorry ^.^ lol

-clary xx