.thirteen.

The only two who didn't give up on finding Sarang were Junmyeon and Sun. But there was no sign of her and there was no hope that she would ever return. Everyone around them told them to forget about her and move on. Everyone, including the agency, and their own group members acted as though she had never existed. It was like the ground had swallowed her up. 

Junmyeon's other group members were worried about his health--both physically and mentally. He was spending every waking moment of his free time trying to find her, and he was exhausted. He hardly ate, he barely even slept. If not to be with her again as a couple, he wanted to ask her why she left them so suddenly, without even saying goodbye. He wasn't resentful for it, he just wanted to understand her reasons, and he wanted to see her again if even one last time.  

As filming for Yixing and Sun's movie neared its end, the two were brought together into one of the meeting rooms, to ask something of them. "We want you two to sing the main song for the OST." The producer said to them with excitement. Sun already saw it coming, since both she and Yixing were part of the two most successful music groups in Korea and even in the rest of Asia. 

He explained that it was going to be a quirky and fun love song in which they would both also star in the music video for. Sun wanted to refuse the offer right away. She and Yixing had distanced themselves from each other and her relationship with Ernesto was growing ever since they had met in Mexico. She didn't want to have more problems in her life when things were going so well. But Lina and Yixing's manager thought it would be a splendid idea to sing a song together and act like they were in love for some music video.

On the last week of filming, they got to work on the song. 

After filming for the movie, there was a goodbye party for all the actors and staff, but the two were whisked away to a recording studio to perform the vocals that would be used. They finished late at night and were taken back to their apartment building to get some rest. 

As soon as Sun entered her apartment, she was shocked to see there were leaks coming from her ceiling. When she called the building management for help, they informed her that they were coming from the apartment above her. The person who lived there had broken one of the knobs on his shower and there was water overflowing in the apartment. She was not allowed to stay in there for at least a week. But that was exactly how much longer she would be needing the apartment.

The Baby Lips maknae heaved a sigh of frustration and got her phone out of her pocket. The first person she thought to call was her manager Lina. "Lina unnie, the apartment manager says I can't stay here because there's a water leak from the apartment above. I'm going to catch a taxi to your hotel."

But her manager quickly refused. "What for? The hotel is all the way across town. Might as well stay with that boy." Sun knew exactly who she was talking about. Zhang Yixing. He lived right across the hall from her and there was nothing wrong with his apartment. But she didn't know if he would want her there. Sun thought about it as Lina'ss voice once again said into the phone. "Stay with him tonight and tomorrow you can come over and stay the next of the week. I just have some paper work to complete before we can go back to Korea."

Sun bit down on her lip nervously. She would have to face Yixing again, alone, in an apartment. But she finally decided it was for the best. She gathered her belongings quickly and went across the hall to knock on Yixing's door. He opened it a few minutes later, just when Sun had changed her mind and turned to walk down the hallway. She decided she would instead go to a hotel and book a room by herself. If Lina didn't want to help her, she didn't want to beg Yixing for help. But he saw her already halfway down the hall and called out to her. 

"Mae...was that you knocking on my door just now?" He asked her in Korean.

Even though they were in his country and she understood Mandarin, he always wanted to accommodate her instead of her having to accommodate him.

She turned slowly, full of shyness, and nodded her head. "Yeah." 

He drank her in and noticed that she had all her belongings with her, and he quickly figured something was wrong. He knew for a fact that they were to remain an extra week in China after filming. That was for paper work reasons, and also in case they were to need them during the final stages of editing and putting together the film as well as the OST for the movie. It made no sense that she would be leaving now, so soon.

"Why do you have all your things?" He asked her with confusion.

She looked down at her two luggage and gave a small shrug of her shoulders. "There was water leaking into my apartment from the floor above, so the manager asked me to evacuate."

"If you want to, you can spend the night here with me. I wouldn't mind." Yixing was quick to offer his own apartment up to her. He knew she was being honest and he didn't want her going out in the cold in the middle of the night. Not when he was right next door and they had a history together. He couldn't let her just go out like that. 

Sun gave a small smile and a shake of her head. "You don't have to do that for me."

But he dismissed her attempts at declining and walked over to her, taking one of her luggage from her and using his free hand to take her hand in his. "I won't take no for an answer. Just because we're not dating anymore doesn't mean we can't be friends."

-

The first moments of them together alone at the apartment were quiet and awkward, especially for Mae. She sat on the couch with her luggage by her, keeping mostly to herself while Yixing had excused himself to go take a shower. He had left his phone on the coffee table in front of Sun, not that she had any interest to see anything on his phone. It was a new one after all, and she would be unable to access it. 

When he had his previous phone, they shared each other's passwords and she even had his finger print saved on her phone, like he did with hers. But this was a new cellphone that he had gotten ever since the break up. Sun had just now noticed that she had the same one and that his finger print would still scan to unlock her phone if he so wished to do so. When the thought registered in her mind, she quickly went into her phone settings and erased the prints. Baobei print 1, and Baobei print 2. But she still had the same password and if he had bothered to remember it, he could still access her phone.

Suddenly, there was a ping that pulled her out of her thoughts. Then another, accompanied by a light that flashed with an incoming text message. By the third one, Sun's eyes glanced curiously at the phone screen. 

She and Yixing had no sort of relation anymore, and she knew she had no right to look. But, as she told herself, it was part of human nature to be curious. She thought about going into the kitchen and getting some food prepared for them while he was in the shower, to distract herself from wanting to look at what was happening with his phone.

But then when she saw the name on the screen, she felt her breath hitch in her throat. 

The person texting him was one of their co-stars from the movie Oh My God, but it was none other than Coco Jiang, the other female protagonist in the movie. Sun didn't want to look, but at that point, she was pretty much committed as soon as she saw the name pop up on the screen. This woman was older than him, almost fifteen years, yet she was sending him text messages with heart emojis and smiley faces from what she could see in the text previews. At the same time, her phone buzzed with kakaotalk messages from her long distance almost boyfriend Ernesto, but she ignored it for the time being. 

Sun knew it was wrong, she knew it all too well, but an acute jealousy ended up getting the better of her in the end and she picked the phone up in her hands. She stared at the screen for a good minute before she clicked on the home button. Since it was a new phone, she no longer had finger print access to it. She paused for a moment, until she decided to try the password option. Sun thought about it for a moment until she typed in a four digit number that came to her mind. 

0508.

It was the date that she and Yixing had started dating all that time ago. May 8th.

She let out a gasp of surprise when the numbers gave her access to his cellphone. It had to mean that despite him being cold and distant towards her, he still cared. Enough that he still used her special date to be his password on his phone. Then why was he letting all of this happen? Why was he just sitting by as Sun went out with Ernesto? It didn't make any sense to her. She knew she hurt him, they both knew it. But if he still cared, why not work things out? They could try again. The problem was he didn't seem to want to, or he was too scared to try again.

The phone dropped to the carpet floor when she was startled by the sound of the bathroom door opening down the hall. Then came Yixing's voice calling out to her, "Is everything okay over there? I heard a thud. Did you fall down? Do you need help?" 

Even despite everything he was still willing to help her so much.

She called back nervously. "Yeah, everything's fine."

Still, it seemed that he wanted to confirm it for himself and he walked down the hallway to find her. Sun felt her cheeks go red when he walked out into the living room with a towel wrapped around his waist. She looked away, after quickly having placed the phone back onto the coffee table, and she grabbed her phone, pretending to be uninterested. She had seen Yixing shirtless after all, but this was different because he wasn't hers and she couldn't touch him. He was no longer hers. He was very possibly dating a woman nearly fifteen years older than him.

He shot her an innocent smile. "I just wanted to make sure you were really okay. You always have been a bit prideful and won't admit when you're hurt."

She shook her head quickly. "Not this time, Xing."

He excused himself once again and went to change into something comfortable for the night. When he finally grabbed his phone, he unlocked it and read his text messages, quite possibly from Coco Jiang. He looked at his cellphone, then at Mae, and said, "Coco says there's going to be a gathering at a bar downtown, and she wants to know if we want to come."

Sun almost wanted to roll her eyes at his invitation because she knew she hadn't been invited. The other actors and the crew were very nice to her, but they hardly talked to her off set. Yixing on the other hand, they seemed to love on and off the set. Sun doubted that the invitation had been extended to include her as well. She also didn't want to be in a place where she would be third wheeling with her and Yixing. 

She gave a shake of her head. "I'll just stay here and sleep. You go ahead, Xing."

"I don't want to leave you here alone." He told her.

But she insisted. "You should go if you really want to. Don't worry about me."

As much as it killed her to know he would probably go to meet up with her, she couldn't stop him because she had a new relationship of her own. Also, she had tried to patch things up with him and he hadn't put in the same effort she did. She wasn't going to wait on Zhang Yixing forever.

"I guess I'll go." He finally decided, and she wasn't sure if he sounded all that interested. Or maybe it was wishful thinking and she heard it the way she wanted to hear it. 

He left the apartment after changing into different clothes, and assured him that she could call if she needed anything. He also promised her he would be home early, and that she shouldn't worry about him. 

For a fraction of a second, it almost felt like they were in a real relationship again.

-

its been almost a year since i last updated this story.

i have honestly missed writing for this. i have recently become inspired with this series again, so please expect more updated for this one and the other stories in this series.

please comment which story you would like to see updated. i would like to see what you all think.

-clary