t w e n t y f i v e

-

song for this chapter:

se va muriendo mi alma (my soul is dying) by el buki (aka marco antonio solis).

just a little song about a man who loves a woman and she has someone else now (sound familiar somewhat?). now he wonders how he will possibly forget their love when it was the most beautiful feeling he has ever gotten. his soul is slowly perishing and she seems to not give a flying fuck.

-

His mood became a roller coaster of positive and negative shifts as the year slowly got closer to its ending point. It seemed that as the days in December came and went in repetitive schedules of holiday performances, recording the vocals for Miracles in December, and filming the music video for it, he was losing hope that his secret relationship with Mae would stop being a secret. He began to see it as something of an impossible dream, especially when there were constant gossip articles of Sun and Aron on their dates.

During that time Chanyeol and Baekhyun had met a foreign girl who was teaching at a primary school nearby and were spending odd amounts of time with her. Lu Han and Tao were closer than ever, the best of friends, while Yifan and Sehun stood and watched bitterly from the sidelines. Kyungsoo was going on secret outings with the group's hair stylist Yeo Nari, while the group leader Junmyeon was beginning to show signs of a strange behavior that the other boys were comparing to the way Yixing acted. The other boys were good to keep up with their schedules and things that pertained to their careers.

Yixing felt bad about the fact that he was beginning to neglect his career because of all the attention he was keeping on Mae and her fake love life with Aron Kwak. He was no longer practicing his instruments during his free time, or composing as much as he used to. His mood was through the dirt, which left him without the energy to practice as diligently as he normally did.

New Year's Eve finally came around without Sun ever mentioning anything about their relationship being made public. Yixing and the other EXO-M boys had been scheduled to perform at the Hunan New Year Countdown concert. Baby Lips M, along with other artists and groups were going to be there as well and he saw it as his opportunity to ask the question again. His other group mates had remained in Korea for the New Year's concert of their own in Seoul.

The groups were backstage. 

Baby Lips M would perform first, followed by EXO M. As the performance ended and the girls made their way back off  the stage, Sun ran into Yixing, accidentally bumping shoulders with him. He placed his arms on her shoulders to stabilize her, and apologize with a bow of his head. "I'm sorry." He said quietly.

"Its fine." She nodded back, her eyes avoiding his.

"Mae, can we talk?" He asked.

But before she could give an answer, Yoona returned to grab her group member by the arm. With Sarang back in Korea, Yoona was in charge, being the leader for the sub group BLM. "Come on, Sun. We have to get going before the area gets crowded." 

During the practices for the show, the groups had been warned to make a swift exit and avoid lingering in the back stage area. That was to prevent crowding and to allow for the stage crew to go about with their jobs without any interruptions. Sun was unable to reply to Yixing and was dragged away by her group leader. He only watched the two girls as they disappeared behind a curtain that led out to another area of the set.

After that moment, he didn't have the courage to ask her. He instead waited for her to be the one to bring it up. But Sun went about as though she had forgotten what she had promised him.

She hadn't forgotten, only now it was more difficult than ever to expose the truth.

-

The groups returned to Korea shortly after the celebrations for the New Year. Due to their busy schedules, the group members of Baby Lips were not allowed vacation days over the holidays. Instead they had been granted Christmas day as a free day to spend with family, as well as New Years day. All other days of the holiday season were still work days for the idols. The same was the case for EXO, whose Chinese members were unable to visit their country for the holidays. The four boys spent those two free days in their dorm, while the others had the time to travel home, visit family, and return the next morning for practice.

Lu Han and Tao had cooked dinner for the four of them, and they exchanged presents with each other. They were each other's family away from home. Even though it was only the four of them that day, Yixing ended up having a good time. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy the company of the other members, but the other three who were Chinese like him knew the struggles of living in a foreign country alone.

In the Baby Lips dorm, only six were able to go home for the day because they had been born and raised in Korea. Sun was one of them, but she remained in the dorms for two reasons. One was to accompany her group members who could not return home for their free day, and another was because she had been instructed to spend some time with Aron that day, since he was from Los Angeles and could not return home.

For Minnie, she had been fortunate enough that her parents and her boyfriend were able to come to her. Her family was living in the United States, but had traveled to Korea just to see her. In Mexico, the football season had ended and Minnie's boyfriend Isaac had been given two weeks of vacation, which he spent one with his family and the other with his girlfriend. 

Sarang was getting ready early on the morning of the first day of the year, her face beamed with excitement. "Happy to go home, unnie?" Sun wondered as she laid on her bed. She and the members of BLM had just gotten back from the airport four hours prior and she was exhausted.

The leader of Baby Lips gave a nod of her head. "Yeah. I can't wait to see everyone. Feels like I haven't been home in ages."

She heaved an enamoured sigh, which also gave away other intentions she had for her free day.

"Are you seeing Junmyeon oppa too?" Sun guessed.

Sarang's lips formed into a big smile that she could barely contain. Just thinking about him sent a thousand butterflies fluttering in her stomach. "Well...okay, yes. We're meeting up somewhere private to have a nice little breakfast together and then I'm going to see my family. Best of all is now that Minnie's boyfriend is in Korea to see her, the media will be too busy following them around to even notice Jun and I are out together." From the moment Isaac had gotten off the plane, there had been dozens of photographers and idol news reporters there to film everything. He was just as much a celebrity in Korea as he was in his own country. But he was famous in Korea for different reasons, while in Mexico he was famous for his athletic abilities.

In the end, Sarang had been unable to end things with Junmyeon. At the moment, both of them were in that happy stage in their relationship that Sun remembered from when she started dating Yixing. They didn't worry about the future or the consequences of their relationship. Its was only bliss and love. Now it was a rocky path in which they both were trying to make it work, but Sun was not yet ready to reveal the truth. She could sense that even though he wouldn't mention it anymore, he was slowly growing tired of waiting for her because he had already waited so long.

"That's great, unnie." Sun smiled at her. "I hope you have a wonderful time."

"Aren't you going to spend time with Yixing?" Sarang wondered, raising an eyebrow in question. "Or with your family?"

Now Sun heaved a sigh, offering a shake of her head, followed by her response. "I can't. They want me spending time with Aron later because his family is in the United States and couldn't come visit him."

"Well try to make some time." Sarang encouraged.

Sun smiled, but it was a weak one.

-

Sun and Aron had dinner together with a few of their group mates, along with Isaac and Minnie. The other girls mentioned they were going to have a movie night afterwards with snacks and games to pass the time. Minnie and Isaac excused themselves and went to the movies together, since they wanted some private time. The other members invited Sun and Aron to watch the movie with them, but before Sun could accept, Aron declined saying that he had gotten permission from the managers to take Sun out to a night club. 

Sun invited the other girls, but none of them wanted to come along except Rin. "Are you really capable of third wheeling them, Rin?" Miran eyed her with a warning. "That's not cool."

Aron nodded in agreement with Miran, and Rin shot him a subtle glare which he didn't catch.

"I've never gone to a Korean night club." She argued with a shrug of her shoulders, trying to convince the other girls to let her go, particularly Yoona. She was like their mother figure of the group when Sarang wasn't around to take care of them and they always looked to her for permission or approval as their subgroup leader.

"So you've gone to night clubs in Vietnam?" Yoona wondered.

Though Rin was half-Vietnamese and half-Korean, she had been born in Vietnam. She had also been raised there until she was cast by Pledis Entertainment during their global auditions. They had gotten her because even though she was foreign, she also already spoke Korean and they knew it would be easier for her to adapt.

"No comment." Rin replied with a mischievous grin.

The other girls were surprised by her reply because they knew that Rin was only twenty, and had moved to Korea at fifteen after joining the agency. She had to have been much younger when she went to a night club in Vietnam. 

Taking in their reactions, Rin let out an amused laugh. "Don't be so dirty minded. When I was fourteen we had our high school winter dance at a night club that they rented. But they wouldn't give us alcohol, only soda or water. The music was fun and no one ended up pregnant later or anything like that, which made it a successful night."

"You can't go with them." Yoona decided firmly. Looking to Sun, she added, "She shouldn't be going either since she's only nineteen. But I'm trusting you, Aron."

Rin's expression dropped into a frown. "Unfair."

"Lets go before she changes her mind." Aron urged her, and grabbed her by the hand.

Sun wanted her to change her mind, since the last thing she wanted was to spend her day off in a night club with Aron.

-

From the moment they arrived, Sun ordered a drink. She was surprised by the fact that none of the car tenders asked her for an ID. The legal drinking age in Korea was eighteen, and she was nineteen, but they had no way of knowing that unless they recognized her as being a member of Baby Lips. When her drink was brought out, Aron leaned in to whisper in her ear, "Try not to get as drunk as you did last time." He warned. But the way that he had done it, to the outsider eyes looked more like a romantic gesture.

Her blood boiled at his words.

The nerve he had to tell her something like that when both of them were in a relationship they didn't want. All because Pledis didn't want one of their idols romantically linked with someone from a rival agency.

And she really could do nothing about it because she was bound by a contract. She had to obey them, as much as she didn't want to. 

She swatted away his comment. "I do what I want."

"Fine." He gave an uncaring shrug of his shoulders. "Don't expect me to come to your rescue when you're stumbling around, drunk off your ass because you can't control your emotions."

"Then why did you bring me here?" She hissed the question, her tone full of annoyance.

"It was the only kind of place open on New Year's Day and the management wanted us to go out and look like we're having fun." He replied with the same level of annoyance. "I don't want to be here either, but I'm not going to get in trouble because of you. If you happen to let anything slip, I'll just say I'm the victim in all of this." Which was just as well, Sun thought to herself. In a way, he really is the victim in all of this. Him and Yixing. "Then you'll be the one looking like the horrible person here." He told her.

Sun rolled her eyes at him. "I'll control myself."

She downed her drink in a matter of seconds and felt the liquid burn her throat as it made its way down. Aron grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to her feet. "Lets go dance together so people will think we're having a good time."

"I'm not having a good time." She confessed rather bluntly.

"I said so people will think that we are."

-

major filler, again. but i wanted to update today.

this is around the time that sasaeng starts out, which is why i mentioned baek, chanyeol, and narda in there. i think after the next chapter i will be able to resume updating both replacement and sasaeng, so that is very exciting. 

the song at the top is one that i chose bc i think it relates with the emotions of this chapter somewhat. so i hope you like it, listen to it if you have the time.

thank you for reading!

-clary xx