+ fourteen

Chanyeol and Narda took a cab to the mall and he took care of the fare despite her protests for them to split it. He assured her that it wasn't a problem for him to pay it, and that it was the gentlemanly thing to do. She rolled her eyes at him playfully and finally accepted, telling an anecdote about a cousin she had back home in the Unites States. She told that he liked to take care of the bill whenever he went out with his girlfriend, and that he always said that he felt offended if he let a woman pay only because it was traditionally a custom in their culture, the way he was raised. 

The kpop idol laughed and admitted to her that Korean was culture was very much the same in that way. If a boy had a girl he fancied and invited her out to eat, he was the one who needed to pay for everything. He personally preferred it that way because he saw it as polite. How could he invite someone for dinner and then expect them to pay the bill?

They were dropped off right at the entrance of the mall. 

Six Malls Over Korea.

Narda looked up at the multi colored neon signs at the top and said to Chanyeol, "I've been here before. I won a contest and was given a gift certificate that I still haven't used."

He nodded. "I saw you on television."

"Did Baekhyun see me too?" She wondered. Nearly a month later was when it really hit her and she felt subconscious about it. "I can't believe I really did that. So embarrassing." She brought a hand to her face as she felt a blush coming forward.

Chanyeol crinkled up his nose. "Lets not talk about Baekhyun."

"Sorry." She replied.

He walked into the mall with Narda beside him, and he led her deep into the building until they found the pizza place. It was something like the bars she saw back home. Like Buffalo Wild Wings with televisions and beer adverts all over the place. The only difference she saw was that all the signs were in Korean, and that the neon signs and adverts displayed Korean athletes such as football players. Back home, since she lived in a primarily Hispanic area, she was used to seeing cutouts or adverts of football stars like Chicharito, Miguel Layun, or Giovani Dos Santos.

At the counter right by the entrance of the restaurant was a young man who stared at Narda for three reasons. One, she was dressed in a schoolgirl uniform. Two, she was foreign. And three, she was dining with none other than Chanyeol of EXO. It would have been a surprise if he hadn't recognized the kpop idol.

The two exchanged a few words in Korean about where Chanyeol wanted to sit with Narda, and the host walked them over. Of the newest advertisements, she spotted one with a familiar national team logo. On one side were Chicharito, Oribe Pertalta, and Memo Ochoa. On the other were three Korean National team players which she didn't recognize. The announcement was both in English and Korean. 

January 30th, 2014. 09:00 KST. Mexico vs South Korea in San Antonio, Texas. 

As they sat down across from each other and were handed their menus by the host, Narda jumped in her seat with excitement. The host walked away to give them a few minutes to think about which toppings they wanted on their pizza. 

The smile was wide on Narda's face and Chanyeol asked her in a teasing voice. "What are you suddenly so happy about?"

Her eyes gestured to the promotional poster on the wall which was not too far off from where they sat. She began to explain, "I almost forgot that my national team is playing against your national team tomorrow. We should have just came to watch it then so that I could proudly wear my green jersey in a restaurant full of Koreans."

"We can come tomorrow too if you want." He offered, more for himself than for her. He wasn't personally too interested in football, not like she was. That was more Lu Han and Jongin. As his brown eyes found the poster on the wall, he asked her, "But...I thought you were American?" The teasing smile was back because he knew--she had explained to him before--that she had been born in the United States, but her parents were from Mexico.

Crinkling up her nose in distaste, she admitted without a shred of remorse. "I feel more Mexican than American, to be honest, even if I was born in America. And I honestly like the Spanish language much better than English because its a romance language. If you understood Spanish, I wouldn't be speaking English to you right now."

"I can barely understand English." He said.

"Hey," She gave a shrug of her shoulders. "If I knew any Korean, I would speak Korean to you. But I don't, and we need a way to communicate."

Within a few more minutes, they had planned to return to the pizza place the next day--which would be a Saturday--at nine in the morning just to watch the game. Chanyeol was grateful the game had fallen on a weekend and that she was interested in watching it. Weekends were mostly the days in which the group was given more free time to spend with family. He would surely have the morning off unless SM scheduled something for them to do at the last minute. A waiter had also already come by to take the list of ingredients that they wanted on their pizza.

Chanyeol asked for a meat lovers pizza toppings on his half of the pizza they were going to share, and Narda asked for just cheese. When Chanyeol made a face, she informed him that she only liked her pizza with cheese.

They were waiting for their pizza to arrive, as well as a basket of hot wings and some breadsticks that Chanyeol had ordered, when they heard a familiar voice calling the boy who was sat across from Narda. "Hey guys!" He boomed, waving a hand over his head frantically and with a big smile on his lips. His hair was wind tussled and his cheeks were red as though he had ran there from the kimbap place since he had a white bag with food clinging from his wrist.

He cut the distance between himself and the two with a few quick steps and plopped down inside the booth, sliding in next to Narda. The primary school teacher tried to keep her heart from thumping out of her chest, but it was difficult. Her inner fangirl was fighting to be let loose.

"What are you doing here, Baek?" Chanyeol asked, his formed a tight line. He was clearly not amused by his friend's actions.

Baekhyun huffed out a tired reply. "Eomma hyung asked me to come with you."

That was a lie, and Baekhyun knew it. But he needed and excuse to tag along with them because he knew that Chanyeol would be going out with Narda. 

You can call it going out with a friend, Baekhyun thought to himself, but I knew you were talking about her.

Trying to get rid of him once more, Chanyeol gestured to the bag of food that hung from his group mate's wrist. "Shouldn't you be getting that back to the dorms? The boys are probably hungry." It looked heavy, and the three boxes inside were tilted to the side and disorganized. The others were surely going to get something that looked more like stir fry for dinner.

"Yeah." Baekhyun nodded in agreement. "But I just wanted some pizza for myself, and since eomma asked me to take care of you...here I am."

"Here you are." Chanyeol repeated the last bit of Baekhyun's words, his face still serious.

"Should I go to the front counter and order a pizza there?" His room mate wondered. He spoke in his broken English, so that the girl Chanyeol had invited could understand everything that was being said.

Narda gave a shake of her head. "No. I mean, usted and I ordered a ton of food. You can just share with us. But before we leave, please remind me to order something to-go for Nari."

"Thank you." Baekhyun bowed his head to her.

"Nari likes the veggie toppings pizza." Chanyeol informed Narda. 

On many occasions when he had gone out with Kyungsoo, Nari, and Baekhyun in the middle of the night, they would rarely go to pizza places. But when they did, Kyungsoo always scolded Baekhyun and Chanyeol because they always tended to forget that Nari liked the vegetable pizza. It had taken at least four outings to a pizza place for them to remember what she wanted on her pizza, even despite the fact that Kyungsoo classically condition them into remembering it.

Hearing Chanyeol's words, she shot him a confused look. "Wait. You know Nari?"

The way in which Nari referred to the EXO boys--our neighbors, she had once called them--hinted to Narda that she knew who they were, but didn't personally know them. Now Chanyeol was sounding like he knew Nari, was familiar with her on a personal level rather than merely as neighbors.

Chanyeol nodded his head. "Yes, we know her. She's part of our official team of stylists. Nari has been doing our hair ever since we debuted."

"Oh." was all that Narda said.

She was surprised, and she had to admit that she was upset about Nari keeping that from her because they were good friends. Still, she knew that there were secrets between the two and that there were certain things they preferred to keep private--for instance, when Narda didn't tell Nari that she was spending her free time as Byun Baekhyun's sasaeng. 

Now that Narda had shared information about her sasaeng acivities, she thought it was time for Nari to share some information of her own.

-

Their shared pizza dinner with Narda was an undesirable experience for Chanyeol to say the least. Each time he tried to make conversation with Narda, Baekhyun would cut in and steal her attention away from him. Narda continued politely trying to talk to Baekhyun, while still including Chanyeol, and when the pizza arrived, the taller of the two boys was relieved that at least Baekhyun would be too busy eating pizza to even try to talk to anyone.

The two of them dropped Narda off at their apartment since Chanyeol didn't think it was gentlemanly to let her walk in the middle of the night alone, even if it was just across the street. Narda thanked them for the meal and the two boys were on their way back across the street to their dorm building.

When they arrived, Chanyeol and Baekhyun pushed the door open to the lounge room. The boys were still there. Only a few from the group were missing--mostly members of EXO M. Lu Han, Tao, and Yixing were nowhere to be seen. It was about two and a half hours after Baekhyun and Chanyeol had left the building, and the other members had the drive to continue waiting for them, even when three of their own left to find food elsewhere.

"Where are Lu Han hyung, Yixing hyung, and Tao?" Baekhyun wondered, walking up to the table and setting down the boxes of food from the kimbap place. The food had long since gotten cold and the other boys would have to heat them up.

With his chin propped on his hand and slightly drooping eyes, Junmyeon replied, "They went to buy food for themselves because you two took forever."

"Seriously." Kyungsoo agreed.

"I would have gone with them." Sehun admitted shamelessly. With a tiny hint of jealousy, he added, "But Lu Han hyung no longer funds my eating expenses ever since he became closer friends with Tao. Now they do everything together and he forgot about me."

Jongin looked to him with an amused expression. "Okay, this isn't about your love life with our hyung, maknae. This is about the food Baekhyun hyung promised to bring."

With his eyebrows furrowing in confusion, Chanyeol pointed out, "I told Baekhyun I was getting pizza with a friend at Six Malls over Korea, and he said he would inform you boys." As another detail of Baekhyun's lie came to him, he added, "He also said that Junmyeon hyung asked him to come along with me so I wouldn't get lost."

"I never said that." Junmyeon assured, almost looking offended as though that wasn't something he would normally say.

Sehun laughed. "He would say that though."

Chanyeol said nothing, but shot Baekhyun a look.

There was a silence in the room that lasted about two seconds before Jongin's phone beeped in his pocket. He pulled it out to open a notification which made him gasp and then smile like a madman. He typed away on his cellphone with frantic thumb movements and hit send. Soon eight other phones in the room beeped at the same time.

As they got their phones out to see the message, Jongin said to one of the band members, "So that's where you were, sneaky hyung."

dance pants: allkpop.com/exo-chanyeol-is-into-schoolgirls ;) !!!

Chanyeol clicked on the link sent by Jongin and it led him to a gossip article on allkpop. On his screen he saw a picture of him and Narda, from earlier that day before Baekhyun joined them. They were walking side by side near the mall as they were approaching it. It had been taken from a distance away which made the quality bad, but it was clear that it was him. Narda's face was too blurry to determine who she was unless the person knew her already.

EXO's Chanyeol is into school girls and was spotted on a date with one, the article claimed.

"Ah hyung, you had that secret very well hidden from us." Sehun teased. "You like school girls? Aren't you a little too old for them? Not even I'd go for them, and I'm a bit closer to their age."

"You are a school girl." Jongin said jokingly.

Baekhyun took one look at the photo and was not amused by it. He quickly closed out of the web page and stuffed his phone into his pocket. 

Chanyeol wasn't pleased about it either, but his reasons were different. His managers from SM Entertainment would see it, they would know he had been out with a girl who could possibly be a love interest, they wouldn't be pleased by the pictures taken, and there would surely be consequences.

Not to mention the public criticism he would face because of that article that was simply not true.

-

just pretend that isn't a terrible photoshop job, gals. i normally would cut her away from her background and then paste her onto his image (even though it would still look shitty tbh). but that's too much work so i just collaged them side by side with zero effort. 

im honestly so tired bc of school, but this story is getting good. so i thought i would post a new chapter. i'll try to post something for my other exo fics tomorrow as well. 

i hope you like the chapter, and thank you so much for reading.

have a great weekend!

-clary xx