Chapter 21

Jiyoon stared at the people in the hall, all famous and well-known. “There’s SHINee, SNSD… Is that Donghae from Super Junior?!” She whispered, tugging on Luhan’s sleeve with each name. He chuckled, taking a sip of his drink before setting down the glass to point out another famous face.

“Look! There’re the other members of Super Junior – Kyuhyun, Eunhyuk, Shindong…” He said, turning to see F(x)’s Amber coming towards them. “Hey Amber!” Luhan greeted, waving to his sunbae.

Amber came over to their table, where the other members of EXO-M were seated around, and grinned happily. “Oh! Who’s this? New face?” she asked, shaking Jiyoon’s hand. Jiyoon only gaped at the contact, shocked to see Amber openly greeting her.

“Uh…” Jiyoon replied dumbly. Everyone laughed at Jiyoon’s star-struck expression as Luhan introduced them to each other, “This is Park Jiyoon, my fiancée.” Amber’s eyes widened before she bent closer, looked over her shoulder and whispered, “Seriously? You’re not pulling my leg are you? Does the boss know?”

They all shook their head to both questions as Amber leaned back and crossed her arms, “Wow. Okay, but you’re gonna tell the boss soon right? I bet he’ll have a fit!” She laughed, “So when are you two getting married? You have to invite me!” Jiyoon barely blinked before feeling her cheeks burn red. She quickly bent her head down to hide from Amber’s curious scrutiny. Amber winked and walked off, re-joining her group, but not before she patted Jiyoon’s head and squeezed her shoulder.

“Did I… just shake hands… with AMBER?” Jiyoon asked, looking at Luhan then down at her hand then back at him again. “Wait, I should have asked her for a photo!” she groaned, pinching the fabric of her dress in her hands.

Luhan patted her hands, “Hey, don’t do that to your dress, you’re wrinkling it. And you can always ask later,” he conceded. She just stared at him as if he had grown another head, narrowing her eyes in disbelief. “What? The night is still young~” he said, taking her hand in his and kissing the back of it. The rest of the EXO members groaned, looking away in disgust except Tao; he cooed and took a photo instead, laughing when Jiyoon tried to grab the device.

Soon, silence fell over the room as everyone quickly hurried back to their own tables. The opening speech was about to begin. Jiyoon sat up straighter, craning her neck to see the stage glad to have worn her contacts instead. A minor tap on the microphone caught everyone’s attention before someone cleared their throat. Lee Sooman was standing on the stage wearing a crisp black suit with a contrasting red bowtie, a hand curled around the microphone and a smile adorning his face. He pushed his glasses up before speaking, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he said cheerfully. Applause sounded around the room.

“Tonight is our annual Christmas banquet, to celebrate the year’s end. We’ve had many successes this year, especially to our boys, EXO!” More applause, “Boys, you have done well and you will continue to do well! Also, congratulations on your successful release of ‘Miracles in December’!” People in the room all turned to look at their table, clapping and cheering. The speech continued for another few minutes ending with, “Well, I better not talk too much now. Let’s party!”

Kris and Chen stood up to go to the bathroom just as music started playing, as the others slowly made their way towards the dance floor or to socialise. There was even a photo area, the wall filling up with Polaroids. Jiyoon bounced in her seat lightly as she watched people taking Polaroids together before sticking them onto the wall and writing something on it. She stared longingly at them and Luhan could see how much she wanted to get a photo.

 Jiyoon looked down at her dress – a two tone knee-length dress, the bodice of black lace over a white satin fabric, the skirt of the same colour and a black bow brought the whole outfit together at the back. The dress had a collared chiffon panel with long sleeves made of the same black chiffon material because she hadn’t wanted to show too much skin. She thought back to a few days ago when Luhan had announced they were going out.

---3 days ago---

Someone knocked against her bedroom door before coming in and closing it behind them. Jiyoon looked up from her homework to see Luhan coming towards her with one of his wide smiles, most of which she had come to realise held ulterior motives. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders after she had turned back to her homework, working on the next trigonometry question as he leaned against her. “What’cha doing?” he asked.

“You can see what I’m doing,” Jiyoon muttered, putting her calculations into a calculator and then pushing her glasses up when they started to slip.

Luhan chuckled and blew his warm breath against her ear feeling her shiver. She tried to move away and cover her ear, shrugging her shoulders to avoid any more of his breathing. Jiyoon turned her head slightly and glared at him, “Can you not? Can you just… stop breathing or something?”

“Aw, come on. If I stopped breathing, I wouldn’t be here anymore,” he grinned at her and rocked her from side to side. “Do you need any help?”

“No, I don’t. In fact, I’m top of my class. So thanks, but no thanks,” she answered sternly.

“Well… that answer’s wrong,” he pointed out, only to be glared at again by her. “What, I’m just trying to help.”

Luhan watched her work for a few more minutes but soon his legs began to tire, so he kissed her cheek and went over to her bed and sat down, pulling out his phone to play with. He took a few pictures of her, going through the different photo filters until he was happy with the way they looked. Not once did Jiyoon realise what he was doing and continued to do her work.

“Hey…” Luhan spoke up. A hum came in response. “You’re not busy after this right?” Jiyoon shook her head. “Good, since we’re going out today!”

“What?! Why? We went out just yesterday!” Jiyoon turned in her chair to look at him. She pouted, “And you even had the nerve to drag me to that pink atrocity too.”

“So? I thought you might’ve wanted to get new clothes?”

“No. I have enough clothes thank you very much.”

“Psh. You say that, but all you ever wear are jeans and a t-shirt.”

“They’re comfortable. Also, knowing you, I wear them in case you drag me off to some place to do something ridiculous that would like, oh I don’t know, require me to do rock climbing perhaps?” Jiyoon said, reminding him of last weekend when the members had all gotten a day off and because they had nothing better to do, they all decided to go have some fun at an indoor recreational centre.

He just shrugged in response, “Eh, you were obviously having fun anyway. So, are you done now?”

“Ugh! You’re noisy!” Jiyoon said, throwing up her hands and turning back to her work.

“But you love me~” Luhan sang and blew her air kisses and hearts. “You know you do~ You can’t deny it~”

Luhan stood up and came over to plant a slopp