CHAPTER TEN

“Stupid Jongin… He didn’t even wake me up…” A pissed off Soojung mumbles to himself. Though she didn’t want to be mad early in the morning, she couldn’t help herself to do so.

She was pretty sure she asked him to wake her so she could sneak back in the tent. But he didn’t and instead of his face as the sight that woke her up, it was her other three friends’ faces that she saw who were about to draw on her face as revenge for leaving them. Even her own best friend Jinri was down with it when Soojung has mentioned to her before that she’s not very comfortable sleeping there.

When she heard humming coming from the kitchen, Soojung was sure it was Jongin. Though she didn’t plan on heading there, she wanted to confront him about what he did, or rather what he did not do, so she went straight there.

“Hey trai-” She abrubtly stops after seeing Jongin’s when she entered the kitchen. She was taken aback by the sudden sight of the boy, who was half and was sweaty, seemingly came from his workout. “, is this what I could have seen every day if I got married to him?” She thought to herself, biting her lower lip.

“Oh, Soojung!” He turns around with a big grin on his face and two cups of coffee on both of his hands, one of which he hurriedly finished making after hearing her voice. “Good morning!” He hands her the cup of coffee that he made for her, while she reluctantly took it.

“Traitor.” She manages to spat out before looking away from him, sipping the coffee and forgetting that it was hot. She fights the urge to make a sound so he wouldn’t know what just happened to her and how embarrassing it was.

“Is it because I didn’t wake you up earlier?” He asks her as he tried to peak at her, but Soojung was constantly trying to avoid his gaze. “I did try to wake you up, but you kicked me away so…”

“Did I really…?” She turns to him, seeing him raise his eyebrows as he was sipping his coffee. Though he had already confirmed what he said, Soojung stared at him a bit longer than expected so she quickly slaps her face after realizing what she was doing.

“Man, do I smell?” He asks, thinking that it was the reason why it seemed like she didn’t want to be with him at the moment. “Sorry, I just came from a jog. I’ll go take a shower now.”

After drinking the last drop of his coffee, Jongin tells Soojung that he’ll be back soon, washing the cup quickly. However, before he could actually leave the room, Soojung calls his name causing him to turn again.

“Yes?” He asks, but the girl just continued sipping her coffee.

“Nothing.”

Before he got into the shower, Sehun informs Jongin that they were going to have lunch on a boat. Knowing his friends, they will surely swim before that so Jongin picked a much more comfortable and simpler look for the day – a simple tee and khaki shorts.

When he got on the first floor, he sees Soojung peeking and hiding from someone by standing behind the front door. He noticed that she was wearing much common clothes too, a white crop top and green shorts with a backpack to go with, and it reminded him so much of how she used to dress up back in Los Angeles. He walks closer to her to greet her, but the girl was startled by his sudden appearance that she lets out a shout.

It was then when he realized that she was spying on Chanyeol and Jinri, who were already waiting outside by the van. After hearing her scream, they both looked at them.

“Good job, Jongin. Now they know that I was looking at them.” Soojung quickly glares at him.

“Why are you even spying on them in the first place-” Jongin tried to ask even though he already knows the answer, but before she could even open to speak, Jinri walks over to where they were.

“You guys, have you seen my purse?” The girl questions.

“Uh, are you actually going to bring a purse when we’re going to swim-” Once again, Jongin was cut off by this time, it was Soojung who speaks before he finished his sentence. Before she did say anything, he nudges him to shut him up.

“No, we didn’t see anything. I swear to God.”

“Uhm, okay.” Jinri knits her eyebrow, a little sceptical by how her bestfriend was acting up. “Maybe I left it on our room.”

After watching Jinri go back inside the villa and straight ahead to the second floor, Jongin gives Soojung a look. “If you keep on doing that, they’ll know that you’re into them.”

“Let them know, so they can finally admit what’s up between them.” Soojung fires back. She does kind of feel guilty since they did promise not to say anything until they admit it. She then glances at Chanyeol, who was dabbing. She immediately rolls her eyes, while he just kept on asking her to take a picture of him. “What an idiot.”

“C’mon, you guys. Take a picture of me!” Chanyeol begs, but was ignore by the two who continued their conversation.

“Let's just talk to them when we get to Seoul.”

“Fine. But I’ll talk to Chanyeol, you talk to Jinri.”

“Wait, why do I have to talk to Jinri? She’s your bestfriend!” Outraged, he immediately asks her. But more than anger, he was more of scared, knowing that he has no guts to question her about something he knows she’ll never tell him.

“Because Chanyeol is lowkey scared of me.” She says in a matter of fact tone, and Jongin had to nod a little because he knows it was true. “Anyways, you don’t have to talk to her now. Just inform her that you want to talk to her, so chill.” When the boy seemed confused by the plan, Soojung sighs and turns her head slightly back to where Chanyeol was, “Watch and learn, dear Jongin.”

“What do you…” He tried asking her, but for the third time that day, he wasn’t able to finish his sentence. He could only look at her walk towards Chanyeol, “What’s with people today and not letting me talk…” He mumbles quietly, following her.

“Hey idiot. Make sure you enjoy our little trip because you’re going to suffer when we return to Seoul. We’re going to have to talk, alright?” Soojung tells a frightened Chanyeol. Jongin’s pretty sure that he’s thinking that she’s going to literally kill him. “Now go inside. Let’s wait on the van since Jongin has to say something to Jinri.”

Chanyeol glanced in horror at Jongin, who seemed relatively calm until he realized that Soojung has mentioned that he has something to say to her bestfriend. He wasn’t sure what to do nor was he ready for it so when she pushed Chanyeol inside the van, he whispers to her, “Do I really have to do what you just did?”

“Yeah, and luckily for you, you don’t have to wait.” She says, glancing behind him. He had to turn and look only to see that both Sehun and Jinri were coming out of the villa.

“.” A distressed Jongin mumbles after feeling that Soojung had patted him on the shoulder as her sign of good luck before sitting right next to Chanyeol inside. Sighing heavily, Jongin clears his throat before shouting towards Jinri’s direction, “Hey idiot! Make sure you-”

Just like before, Jongin was unsuccessful to finish his sentence. Jinri  has thrown her bag at him, but Jongin has ducked before it could even hit him, so it was the van that got hit.

Sehun, despite him denying it, has grown quite close to the rented van in the short time that they’ve used it. He even washed it himself that morning. So naturally he got mad when Jinri’s purse hit his precious van, immediately running towards it to caress the part where it got ‘hurt’. Soojung has been lowkey listening, so she went out of the van once again after hearing the commotion.

“He called me an idiot!” Jinri tells Soojung in disbelief and in outrage.

“I mean, you didn’t have to copy what I said word by word…” Soojung says, looking at the boy judgingly.

“Well .” Jongin scratches the back of his neck. He was a little embarrassed, but proceeds on telling Jinri what he wanted to say. “Anyways, I’d like to talk to you when we get back to Seoul.”

“About what?” Jinri asks, folding her arms. Because he didn’t expect to be asked and not knowing what to answer, he looks over Soojung, who was also looking back at him.

“Things.” The two say at the same time.

When Soojung thought of a lunch date with her friends in the middle of Busan’s ocean, she was thinking of a nice little get together as they chilled under the sun. The last time they did that back in Jeju, all of them had a great time – well, except for Chanyeol who got seasick. But he seems okay this time.

However, Soojung’s vision of a happy lunch is far from reality as Sehun kept giving a ‘speech’ when the food has already been served. They could start eating, but Sehun glares at them whenever they reach for the food, as if he’s telling them that they couldn’t start until he finishes. She could even hear Chanyeol’s stomach grumbling in hunger as he was sitting next to her.

Sehun was standing on her other side, still talking about random things, though he’s mostly talking about their friendship. Soojung eyes Jongin across the table, who was eying the meal infront of them. Surely he wasn’t really listening at him talk. Then there’s Jinri who was actually looking at him, but she also looks at her in disbelief as to say that she’s done with Sehun. Since Sehun was too busy talking and wasn’t facing her, Soojung slowly and quietly reaches for the meat in front of her, only to be scolded at by Sehun himself.

“I’m still speaking, Jung Soojung!”

“Sorry! Damn…” She raises her hands in defence.

“Don’t shout at her!” Jongin ironically shouts while Sehun just shrugs.

“Can we just, let him finish so we can finally eat?” Jinri pleads, sighing.

“I thought that we were going to swim though?” Chanyeol asks, which made Soojung confused as she had thought that he was as eager to eat as they were.

“Whatever, you can just swim after eating.” Sehun answers.

“Wait, isn’t that dangerous? Swimming when your tummy’s full, I mean.” Soojung questions but only got another sigh from Jinri as an answer.

“Continue your stupid speech, please.” Jinri pleads. She thought that he was going to be offended but Sehun, upon opening his mouth, forgets the rest of what he was going to say on his speech.

“Just say some cheesy and finish it.” Was what Jongin said, and surprisingly Sehun did comply.

They thought that he’d just quote something cheesy, but Sehun had the brilliant idea of forcing them to stand up so they could clunk their glasses of wine together. The boys would usually do that just for fun when they get together, but the case was different at that moment. They were all hungry, and they weren’t allowed to even take a bite of what they were going to eat so just imagine how happy they were when he finally raises his glass.

“I love you guys.” Sehun manages to sneak in his speech. They tried their best not to cringe, but Jongin couldn’t help himself to make a face in disgust. “Cheers!”

“Cheers!”

The five finally drinks the red wine they’ve been craving to drink. They immediately sit back to their seat to finally start eating, but Sehun just had to raise his finger again as he had forgotten to say something.

“By the way, I wouldn’t recommend for you all to get drunk already.”

“And why is that?”

“Because we’re going to a karaoke later this evening.”

“ing hell, look at these idiots!” Namjoon motions Seokjin to come sit with him so he could he show something on his phone, which he does. In it he sees his friends from Imperium Academy, all of which were wearing dapper clothes, posing in a yacht. “And they didn’t even ing invite me…”

Seokjin gives him a look, so Namjoon takes back what he says.

“They look cute.” He tells him, scrolling through Oh Sehun’s instagram feed. He has no idea how Namjoon got to see his pictures when Sehun has his account on private, and Namjoon doesn’t follow him or any of his friends, but he was kind of glad that he had somewhat entered his profile.

On the pictures, the five friends sat together from left to right: Chanyeol, Soojung, Jongin, Jinri and then Sehun himself, all having a serious expression on their faces while some of them were holding glasses of wine. It almost looked like it was from a photoshoot, until he swiped it and another picture of them appears but with wacky expressions. There was another one, a picture of Soojung doing a funny face alone, while Jongin watched her in the background, laughing.

“Why can’t they just marry each other again…” Namjoon mumbles, taking a peak of his phone.

“Marry already? Are they even dating?”

“Are they not?”

Namjoon and Seokjin exchanged looks of confusion.

“Well, they look like they’re already married so…” Seokjin shrugs handing back his phone back to him. He, for whatever reason, started stretching while Namjoon looks at hm weirdly because of what he said.

“Bro, what if they’re already married and is just hiding it from everyone?”

“Want Jongin to put that lotion on you?” Sehun suddenly whispers and because there weren’t anyone around her before, Soojung got startled that she almost dropped the sunblock that she was applying to herself to the ocean.

Furious, Soojung kicks Sehun on his bum while he just laughs. “Shut the up, .” She’s not even mad about what he asked, but because he suddenly appeared from nowhere.

“Somebody told me that the two of you got physical last night.” He teased, much to her annoyance.

“You were awake last night?!”

“No, he told me this morning.” He wiggles his e