+ thirty eight

On her last Friday before returning to Korea, Narda, her family, and her best friend Oriana--per request of her brother--traveled down to San Diego to watch one of Aldair's matches against the team that the family liked. Tiburones Rojos. Narda had been surprised when her brother asked her if Oriana was coming, but she figured where things were headed when he appeared a little too glad to see her.

He watched her all through warm up and even got hit in the face with a stray football because he was distracted. All through the game, he seemed to be playing harder to impress the family, or to impress Oriana.

When the game ended, Aldair's team had won three goals to two, and the family waited for him in the parking lot of the Xolos youth games venue. He was only nineteen and already had a nice car, his own apartment, and was on his way to becoming a professional football player. His family couldn't be more proud of him. 

On the way back to his apartment, the family piled into the mini van, except Narda, who asked to ride with her brother so that they could catch up. In the nearly three weeks that she had been back home, she hadn't seen him even once. He was always busy with training and studying in the afternoons, and didn't have the time to make the drive up to Los Angeles. She sat in the passenger seat and immediately turned to look at him, wiggling her eyebrows knowingly. "So Alda, is there something you want to tell me about Oriana?"

He thought about it for a moment. "That she replaced you with me and Bianey while you were gone?" He blurted out the first guess that came to his mind.

Narda shook her head. "She can have other friends. I made tons of friends in Korea."

"I noticed." He said to her, anything but pleased. Sometimes Narda felt like he was older than her, rather than a year younger. He was way too overprotective. Aldair soon added, "Don't get yourself into trouble. I don't want to be forced to fight some Asian boys for your honor."

A scoff left Narda's lips. "Most of them know martial arts. You wouldn't stand a chance."

"I took boxing lessons until I was fifteen." He shot back, offended that she didn't think he could defeat them if things were to escalate into a fist fight. "I can take on anyone, and beat them."

Of course her brother was good at the two most popular sports in Mexico: football, and boxing. Throw in some lucha libre and maybe some baseball, and her brother would have been the all around perfect Mexican athlete. But even with his skills, she still suspected that Baekhyun could probably flatten her brother like a pancake with his hapkido skills. Not that she was planning to ever find out if that could be true. She wanted her brother and the man she considered her future husband to get along.

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes at him playfully. "Back to what I was originally asking."

"Are you trying to ask me if I like your friend?" He wondered, shooting her a glance for a fraction of a second before he returned his gaze to the road. 

The drive from the venue to the border was about fifteen minutes. Her brother was able to skip the long lines with a pass with the Xolos logo that hung off his rear view mirror. He had borrowed one from one of his team mates which he gave to his family to avoid the up to three hour wait to cross the border back into the United States.

Once in San Diego, the drive was another twenty minutes to get to his apartment. Since he was American, he was one of only three other Xolos players who lived in the United States, and crossed the border every day to go to training. 

When they finally passed the border, he heaved a sigh. "We got close when you were gone, and I really like her. But I don't think she's into me. She's really into that Suho guy." There was a hint of bitterness directed towards a person he didn't even know. But since he was getting what Aldair wanted, it gave him a reason to dislike him. Narda knew that if they could meet and know each other, his opinion of Junmyeon would change altogether. He was one of the nicest people Narda knew. EXO were all nice guys, but if she had to pick the nicest one, she would have picked either Yixing or Junmyeon.

"Suho has a girlfriend." Narda pointed out.

"Yeah." He said, with pessimism in his voice. Narda was rather surprised with the turn of events. Her brother who seemed to have everything, was pining over a girl who was pining over a kpop idol. Like a song she had heard before: she'd die for you, and you for me. "But since you're friends with him, I think she got it into her mind that they can happen."

"The only thing she likes as much as kpop and Suho is probably football. You play football, creep into her heart through there." Narda suggested. For Oriana and Narda, football was also very important. Her friend had even gone as far as to stealing a cardboard cutout of Miguel Layun from the supermarket once. That Narda knew of, the thing was still sitting in a corner of her room and more often than not served as a coat hanger. 

As they pulled up into the parking lot of his apartment building, he remembered something. He shut off the engine as their parents' van pulled up next to them. "Before I forget, I pulled some strings for you at the club." He informed her with a grin.

Narda eyed him with confusion. "What do you mean?"

He continued, "Remember how you wanted to play for Xolos Girls?"

Narda nodded her head.

"Well, I talked to my coach, and since I'm his favorite right now, he promised to do me a solid." He explained with excitement. As his words began to sink in, Narda suspected what he was going to say next. "He talked to the coaches of Xolos girls division, and they promised to offer you a trial. They said you're practically in because you're my sister."

She forced a smile onto her face. "That's great, Alda. Thanks but--"

"But what?" His own smile dropped.

"I renewed my teaching contract in Korea, so I'll be gone for another year." She told him. But even if she got to stay in her home town, she was no longer interested in playing football for Xolos. Especially not if the only reason they wanted her now was because her brother was on the team and had called in a favor.

-

Narda returned to Korea with Baekhyun's ultimatum passed. She hadn't heard anything about a break up between him and Taeyeon and she began to worry that maybe he had gone back on his word. Maybe he had just used her for his own selfish needs and was ready to discard her. Maybe he was just as bad as Taeyeon was deep down, and he was only pretending to care about her. A million thoughts rushed into her mind as she got off the plane at the airport in Seoul and walked through the terminal.

Nari was there to pick her up. The others didn't want to cause a scene by showing up there and having fans swarming them. So Nari was in charge of picking her up and getting her back to her apartment.

Since Narda wasn't allowed in the SM building anymore, the others gathered at Nari's apartment to welcome her back. Everyone was there, but once again Baekhyun was absent, and Narda figured he was probably with Taeyeon. She had probably gotten word that Narda was returning that afternoon and purposefully stopped him from showing up.

Florencia approached her with a camera in hand. "So guys, this is my friend Narda, also known as Guti. She just came back from the United States. Tell us how that went." She pushed the camera close to her.

Narda smiled shyly. "It was great. I got to see my family, and my brother plays football professionally now, so that was exciting." She spoke a bit more about her three weeks away from Korea and then Florencia shot the camera off, pulling her friend in for a warm hug.

Florencia heaved a sigh as they pulled away from their embrace and apologized to Narda with a hint of annoyance that was directed at someone else. "Sorry for shoving that camera in your face. SM literally wants me to film every fucking second of my day now, and then at the end of the week they get to decide what content is uploaded to my web show on Sunday nights, which is totally fucking pointless since they usually just upload anything with Sehun in it. This is beginning to be such a drag."

"Its fine." Narda assured her. She knew just how pushy and intimidating SM could be.

"Also, I was hoping we could meet up later." Florencia suggested with a smile. her annoyance had been replaced with excitement in a matter of seconds. "Jongdia and me wanted to include you in our project. Its something we think you would really like."

Narda had heard about Jongdae and Florencia getting closer. Whenever the supermodel wasn't with her boyfriend, there were pictures of her being seen with Jongdae. The articles talked about a close friendship between the two, while the gossip rags speculated that she was just about ready to leave Sehun for his group mate. But Narda wasn't sure if that was the case. It looked like an innocent friendship to her, and they were even working on a project together. 

It was just as Jongdae had told her and Baekhyun weeks earlier: She doesn't have to run everything she does by Sehun. 

People were always assuming the worst whenever a boy and a girl were friends.

Narda nodded her head in agreement. "As soon as I've had my eight hours of sleep to recover from my jetlag, we can meet up at your place to talk about this project."

-

Back at the SM dorms, Baekhyun was locked in his dorm while everyone else was across the street. Taeyeon walked up to the sixth floor to check on him. EXO's floor appeared abandoned. There was no screaming or video games being heard from the lounge. There was no music blaring or the members shouting lyrics at the top of their lungs.

As Taeyeon passed the last room in that hallway, she rolled her eyes at the sight of the bulletin board. The same one with pictures of all the members when there were twelve of them. Included were photographs of the girlfriends as well. Yena, Mae, Sarang, Florencia, Nari, even Narida, and Acacia had been added to the pictures up there. There was barely any room left for them to tack anything more. But the only person not included there was Taeyeon.

In a rage she tore off one of the pictures with Narda in it and tore it to shreds, letting the pieces of photo paper fall to the floor. It had been a picture of Chanyeol and Narda, smiling happily. 

The mere sight of her made Taeyeon bubble with anger.

She continued down the hall and now she began to hear noises coming from one of the rooms. Since Baekhyun was the only one who stayed behind, she figured it was him. There were voices which she recognized as Florencia, from one of her web show videos, one where she and Narda had been reacting to EXO's Overdose music video.

Narda's voice boomed through the room, muffled only by the door. Taeyeon rolled her eyes. No wonder they got along so well. Narda was just as loud and obnoxious as Baekhyun. If she didn't hate her so much she would have thought they were perfect for each other. But she wanted Baekhyun for herself instead.

As she got closer, she heard other noises joined into the ones from the video. Little grunts, pants, and moans that even though he was alone, he was trying hard to keep quiet. Her name rolled off his tongue like a chant and Taeyeon immediately knew what was happening in there. She gripped the doorknob and twisted on it to get the door open, but it was locked. Within seconds, everything went quiet.

He took a second to compose himself before he called out. "Yes?"

"Baekhyun, really? You're getting off to her fangirling over you in Overdose." Taeyeon asked in anger. "What do you and Chanyeol see in that girl? Honestly, she's loud and obnoxious, and she's not even that pretty. She doesn't even speak Korean either, and you can barely speak English. How do you even understand each other?"

"She's a good person and she loves me." He replied to her, still not opening the door. "And you won't let me even see her, what else can I do? I would be with her right now if it wasn't for your threats."

"Haven't you ever thought that maybe she isn't in love with you as a person?" Taeyeon said, trying to plant a doubt in his mind. "She's probably in love with Baekhyun--the idol, the EXO member--the idealized man she sees in her mind."

"Just fuck off, Taeyeon." He growled, getting more annoyed.

"Yeah." She snorted, poking fun at what she was doing in a taunting way. "You just keep getting yourself off to her videos on youtube. As long as you don't do something stupid and tell her why you have to ignore her now."

She stopped trying to open the door and disappeared down the hall, leaving Baekhyun alone int he EXO dorms once again.

-

it got a little rated r towards the end of the chapter there, but its normal. boys do things like that, and i think its also normal and natural to address that in a story. its almost like when characters never go to the bathroom or never really eat in movies or films. 

but we know they do these things.

and exo are young and handsome men. im pretty surre they do things like this. anyway, here's another chapter. only three more updates before this story is finished.

i hope you enjoyed reading it. it means a lot to me.

-clary