CHAPTER two; arrival

"I feel like we all need English names," Jongin concludes once their plane for Los Angeles finally departs.

Jinri blinks at his words and manages a small, "Huh?"

Sehun pushes on his chair and leans back, letting a content sigh escape his lips as he responds, "I think that he means a Western name of sorts. Kind of like what our English teachers assigned us in school."

"God no," Jongin shrieks, quickly gaining the attention of all the other passengers on the plane. Of course, Jongin being Jongin doesn't seem to be bothered by this at all, and if anything, he seems to enjoy it a bit too much. "Those teachers give out terrible names. Absolutely horrible names. I can't even remember what name they had assigned me because it sounded so bad that I wanted to never remember it again because it was that embarrassing."

Jinri snorts a bit at this before calmly saying, "Jongin, you're being overdramatic again. I think that this is the seventh monologue of yours that we've been subject to, and we literally only met up two hours ago."

"Don't hate, Ssul: appreciate. It's not so often that you guys get to fly first class, right?"

"This isn't first class, you . We're stuck in economy. Your 'badboy charm' didn't seem to work very well on the flight attendents."

"Yeah, well, it's not my fault that there are a bunch of those gayass idols on the flight today hogging up all the first class seats." He pauses to make a facial expression that could be described as anything but pleased. "Twelve of them. Twelve dance-y, sing-y, incredibly homoual men all pimped out in sequins and sparkles and harem pants and eyeliner." Jongin shudders. "Dear God, that one member was wearing so much that I thought he was one of those gothic emo kids from Australia."

"Australia? There are emos in Australia?" Sehun pipes up in curiosity while Jinri only continues looking at Jongin the way a teacher looks at a misbehaved student.

"Shh," the slightly older male whispers, "Just go with it."

And then the two share this look and burst into a fit of these weird man-giggles and Jinri's suddenly thinking that maybe she should've sacrificed herself to the torment of the middle seat after all.

When she finally finds that she can no longer tolerate their man-flirting (because Jinri would be completely fine with simply referring to it as flirting, but Jongin insists that they're not actually flirting and are simply deepening the bond of their bromance), she clears , "Okay, so we're coming up with Western names now?"

Her interruption eventually puts a stop to the unsurprisingly feminine sounds escaping each mouth of the men beside her, before Jongin responds, "Well, I'm not. I already have one." When Jinri raises an eyebrow at this, he decides to continue, "See, my agency decided that 'Jongin' is too difficult for my international fandom to pronounce -"

At the words 'international fandom,' Sehun's eyes light up and he looks at Jongin with that look and Jinri swears that if he wasn't so good to her at every hour of the day, she would totally hit him on his head.

"- so they already gave me a more Western name. So as soon as we set foot in America, you can call me..." He shifts his stare towards each of the younger individuals in a sense of boundless anticipation before finally finishing, "Kai."

"Wow, that's so cool!"

"That sounds so common. Couldn't they give you something more unique?"

Jongin pouts at his childhood friend's lack of excitement and his bromantic boyfriend comes to his rescue, "Awh, c'mon, Jinri. There's no need to put an old friend down, right?"

"Yeah, Jinri."

The young woman just rolls her eyes at the childishness of the conversation before responding with a huff, "I mean, even Sehun's Western name is more memorable than something like Kai. Kai sounds so boring."

Said boring man pouts before asking, "What name did they give you, Sehun?"

He parts his lips to answer, but Jinri decides to respond for him, "No, no. Wait until we're in America to tell him, Sehunnie."

Her boyfriend parts his lips - probably to retort her - but quickly thinks better of it and changes his mind.

Jongin looks a tad bit disappointed at having lost his sidekick, yet somehow manages to not comment on it. "Whatever, Ssul. What will we be calling you when we get there?" Jinri's expression immediately flickers to one of distaste. She's about to argue with her older friend about the topic of Western names, but he continues to speak before she gets the chance. "You can have any name you want, Ssul. It's a world of endless possibilities from here on out."

"You know," Sehun cuts in, "You never told me what the whole 'Sulli' and 'Ssul' thing is about."

There's a pout on his features, and it's evident that he feels left out. Jinri feels a tang of guilt for forgetting to explain the nickname to him, and she's about to explain herself until Jongin drawls, "It's a secret that only us 'j' kids would know." After he takes in the blank looks of confusion from his two younger friends, he sighs. "Get it? Because 'Jongin' and 'Jinri' both start with the letter 'J,' so it's kind of like we have a special bond and - "

Jinri, against her better judgment, is unable to stop herself from giggling at the brunet's lame attempt at a joke, "It's just a childhood nickname, Sehun. Even I can't remember how I got it."

Jongin guffaws, "What? You don't?"

His reaction catches the young woman offguard, "Why? Do you?"

"Of course I do," he mumbles, averting his gaze away from hers, "I'm the one who came up with it, after all."

It's blatantly obvious that the older man's feelings have been hurt, and Jinri feels herself speak before she actually registers doing so, "Okay, okay. Then how about we just use 'Sulli' as my Western name? I mean, it sounds pretty Western." Her words send Jongin's expression soaring as he shoots her a sudden grin, and it's easy for her to smile back.

"That's a wonderful idea! It's good to not lose those small pieces of you, you know?" Sehun adds, happily throwing an arm around each of the individuals beside him to pull them into a joyful embrace. "Man, this trip is going to be amazing!"

Jongin screams a joyous "Hell yeah!", Jinri lets out another laugh, and Sehun accidentally raises his fist a bit too high causing the nearby flight attendant to drop her pitcher of ice cold water all over Jinri.

It totally kills the mood.

---

Sehun, being Sehun, proceeds to freak out and rushes Jinri to the lavoratory in order to clean her up because "I really didn't mean to that! It was an accident, I swear! How can I make it up to you?"

And Jinri just mumbles something about how it's perfectly fine, but her words do nothing but only increase Sehun's panic because the words are spoken so nonchalantly and that can't be natural. 

Because airplane bathrooms are barely enough room for one person, the two find themselves squished together (not that either minds all too much) as Sehun continues to dab at her skin and clothing with the too-thin tissue that they found in the bathroom. "You're not actually angry at me, are you?"

Jinri can do nothing but release a short hum. Sehun's the type of person that you can't really stay angry at for long: she knows this. So even though she's a tad bit annoyed that her white dress shirt is now soaked in ice cold water and that -

Wait.

It seems that they both notice the sheer quality of Jinri's shirt at the same time with mutual looks of horror and a squeaked, "So that's why Jongin was looking at you funny."

"This can't be happening," she moans in response. "We're not even in the States yet! I'm pretty sure that we're still in South Korea! This can't possibly be a good sign."

Sehun flushes a bright shade of red, quickly finding the decency to avert his gaze away from his girlfriend's chest (he swears that he wasn't looking. he was simply trying to soak up the water that had accumulated. that's all. he swears on his own grave). "N-Nonsense. It was an accident. And it was my fault. So unless you think that I'm going to do something horrible and mess everything up in America..." he trails off as he sees something flash in her eyes, and is quickly reminded of their conversation in the women's restroom in Starbucks.

He definitely didn't pick the best of words this time around.

"You know I don't  mean that! Everything will be okay, please stop worrying so much," he pouts. He raises his left hand to caress her cheek carefully, "I love you too much to do anything stupid. I promise. We're going to go to America and we're going to have the time of our lives regardless of whatever crazy scheme Jongin is plotting. He may be cool, and I definitely like hanging out with him, but, Ri, you're my top priority. Always have been, always will be."

The two stare at each other in silence for a moment: Jinri trying to make sure that his words hold nothing but the truth because despite their long relationship, her list of insecurities goes on and on and on, and Sehun displaying nothing but adoration in those twin orbs of his because he loves every single one of those countless 'imperfections' that she insists to have.

Of course, Sehun wins their little stare-off as Jinri can do nothing but break the eyecontact with a bright blush. "Thanks, Sehunnie. That means a lot."

And these words the young man's expression light up with everything from joy to pure love as he pulls her close to his chest and continues to whisper compliment after compliment into the shell of her ear.

"Sehun," she eventually squeaks, "Please tell me that that's your hand touching my thigh?"

Her boyfriend flushes a bright shade of red as he quickly steps away from her, embarrassedly pulling down his shirt in a mild attempt to cover up the problem in his pants. "S-Sorry, Ri. I didn't -"

But the brunette can only giggle, "It's okay. You're not helping yourself out by stretching your shirt. And now it's wet as well." She's about to make another joke about the shape of the marks, but her words are cut off with a sharp sneeze.

Either way, her previous statement is enough to make the color on his cheeks intensify.

And to her surprise, he strips the white t-shirt off his body and she let's out a high-pitched sound of surprise that's close to a scream but not really. His toned triceps and abdominal muscles immediately protrude out of his skeleton-like frame, and even though Jinri's seen him shirtless before, they've never been stuck in an enclosed space this small when it happened. 

Needless to say, it isn't long until a bright blush of her own has spread across her features.

Before she can ask him what he's doing, he's quickly ing her shirt and Jinri's too shocked to do anything. Because one) her incredibly awkward boyfriend turns out to be a seme after all, two) his slender fingers are working her shirt at a rate that she didn't think possible, and three) she's stunned by the fact that she's going to end up losing her ity in the lavoratory of  an airplane.

Yeah, it's definitely not the way that she imagined it to be.

But he quickly strips her of the button-down and turns in the opposite direction, quickly handing her his t-shirt. 

Jinri's stunned to say the least.

"I-I know that my shirt's a bit wet too, but at least it's not as wet as yours. I really don't want you to get sick because of me," he mumbles lamely. There's a beat of silence as he comes to a full realization of the rash - and incredibly suggestive - move that he just made. And combined with the fact that his girlfriend had discovered his only moments earlier adds on to his embarrassment as he quickly turns back around to face her, "O-Oh, God. Jinri, Jinri, I'm so sorry for doing that. I was just so worried and I wasn't thinking and I really didn't want you to get sick so I just kind of -"

He's shut up when his girlfriend takes the few steps to close their distance, gets on her tip-toes, and plants a quick peck on his lips. "It's okay, Sehun. That was really sweet of you. Thank you."

And her boyfriend really does want to come up with some intelligent response, but when he stares down at the shorter woman before him, his hormones start screaming "CLEAVAGE, CLEAVAGE, CLEAVAGE" and his already tight pants become incredibly tighter, so he just blurts, "It's okay. Your bra is really cute."

Jinri blinks and then Sehun blinks and the ensuing silence is so painfully awkward that they can't bear to look at one another.

But Jinri pulls the shirt over her head anyway and tucks it into her shorts while Sehun manages to get his arms through the wet article of clothing. Unfortunately for him, the material ends at a point a little above his belly button and refuses to close, so he somehow succeeds in looking like a homoual model of sorts with an incredibly obvious in his pants that neither he, nor Jinri, know how to take care of.

"Um. Won't you get sick now?"

Somehow the younger man manages a forced smile as he responds, "No, I've heard that I have a pretty amazing immune system. Don't worry about me."

His girlfriend can't stop her gaze from drifting to the area below his waistline as she nervously asks, "And what about that?"

The flush returns to his face. But without saying a word, he bends over the sink, turns the cold tap on, and does his best to get as much as the water as he can on his face. Jinri - who has absolutely no idea what he's doing - stays silent until he comes back up and mutters, "I think that that helped considerably."

"Are you sure that you don't mind my wearing your shirt?"

"Let's just get back to our seats so that I can cover myself up with a blanket as soon as possible."

"Deal."

---

The operation doesn't run as smoothly as the two had hoped as there is an elderly woman who has evidently been waiting a considerable amount of time to use the restroom.

As soon as she sees the couple exit hand-in-hand - and takes note of the quality of their appearances - she mumbles something about teenagers that no longer know how to respect tradition and threatens to complain to the aircraft personnel.

Both Jinri and Sehun flush before bowing profusely and making a run for it.

(They run into one of the idols that Jongin had been complaining about before, but not the one coated in excessive eyeliner. This one is tall and slim and has a ridiculous hair color that contrasts with his bored expression. When he sees Jinri and Sehun, he raises a brow and gives them a quick onceover. Jinri's flattered that she's captured the attention of a celebrity, but Sehun rushes her past the man worriedly mumbling, "No, no, my gaydar was going crazy about that guy. Let's go, let's go. Hurry before he finds out where we're sitting. I don't like the way he was staring at my neck. I thought he was going to sniff me or something.")

When they finally reach their seats, Jongin does a doubletake, before quickly averting his eyes, "I don't think I want to know."

---

A couple of hours into the flight and Jinri is dying of both discomfort and boredom.

After Jongin had so helpfully tossed him a blanket to cover himself up with, Sehun insists that Jinri take his seat in the middle since her former seat is still wet from the water. Thinking that her boyfriend was just being as attentive as always (and still feeling a surge of pity for the poor guy) she agrees without an argument.

Jinri really regrets the fact that she hadn't even bothered to argue.

Because both Jongin and Sehun fell asleep as soon as they finished their free, in-flight meal. Sehun's head is resting lightly on her shoulder as their fingers intertwine somewhere underneath the warmth of the blanket, which she doesn't mind at all. But somehow between one episode of her drama and the next, Jongin's managed to lay out his entire body over her and her boyfriend's laps while leaning his torso against the window of the plane.

For a moment, the young woman debates whether or not she wants to shove him off her, but then she figures that she might as well let him have his way.

Besides, she'd rather have him silently sleeping than awake and yapping to her about everything and nothing at the same time.

Either way, Jinri knows that she's in for a long flight.

---

When they arrive in Los Angeles, the trio are beyond exhausted (despite the fact that the two men had slept for a majority of the trip) and incredibly hungry and - in Sehun's case - desperate for a change of clothes.

"Call your friend, Jongin. Ask her where she is."

"It's Kai now," the oldest corrects, "We just landed in America, so now you have to call me 'Kai.'"

Jinri rolls her eyes at this, but figures that it's best for her to concede with his wishes. "Okay, Kai. Go ahead and call her."

He smirks, and it's only then that Jinri realizes that he had already dialed and was waiting on his phone throughout the duration of their short conversation. "Come on, Sehun. Let's start pulling our luggage out of the carousel."

The tall boy mutters a muffled word of agreeance, before beginning to trail after his girlfriend. But his eyes are already fighting to stay awake and he looks like he's about to somehow trip over the blanket that he's still protectively holding aroudn his body, and the sight makes something stir inside Jinri's heart. She finds herself smiling as she takes his hand within her own and leads him into the direction that she hopes is the correct one.

They don't get very far until they hear a high-pitched "Kai!" and an even higher-pitched "Krystal!"

As the couple turn, they're greeted by the sight of Jongin twirling around a pale girl with bright red hair as they smile and giggle at each other.

Jinri and Sehun turn to each other to share a knowing smile.

Hands entwined with one another, Jongin leads the young woman toward the established pair with a proud smile. "Guys, this is Krystal."

It's immediately evident to the pair why she works as a model. With her long legs, slim waist, and striking eyes, she looks absolutely gorgeous in the short shorts and crop top that she wears. An oversized red jacket completes her ensemble, and her platformed creepers grant her a height that's comparable to Jinri's.

Sehun immediately questions why the older male had described her as a nun earlier despite her choice in clothing.

Krystal waves shyly, and if the two had been expecting a bow, then they would have been disappointed. It's clear that she's grown up in the American tradition rather than the Korean one, so Jinri can't help but wonder why Jongin had developed such an issue with her. Of course, she doesn't dwell too much on the matter as Jongin decides to introduce her next, "Krystal, this is Choi Jinri. Go ahead and call her 'Sulli' though since it'll be easier."

Jinri smiles and extends her hand for a handshake which the redhead hesitantly accepts.

"And this lad over here," Jongin starts, letting go of Krystal's hands in order to throw an arm around the slightly shorter man in a teasing gesture, "Is Oh Sehun. Call him -"

"Alexandavier."

Jongin blinks at him in confusion and Krystal looks like she's holding in her laughter.

Boyfriend and girlfriend look at each other in bewilderment, both not understanding why the atmosphere has suddenly changed so drastically.

" it. Just call him Sehun. He doesn't need a Western name."

At this, Krystal unleashes the laughter that she had been holding back beforehand. "If you don't mind me asking, why is he wearing a blanket?"

And Sehun, who's clearly the most exhaused of the four, just looks so done with life and sees no harm in allowing the piece of fabric to fall to the floor of the airport, exposing Jinri's much-too-small dress shirt. As well as the muscular body that he's been working on since before he and Jinri started dating.

Krystal's jaw immediately drops and Jinri flushes a bright red, and as soon as Jongin realizes that the quartet has begun to garner too much unwanted attention, he quickly fishes the gray cloth from the ground and s it into Sehun's arms. "Alexandavier," he starts with a tone that's almost worse than that of the elderly woman who had chastised Jinri and Sehun outside the restroom on the plane, "How dare you strip in public? Think of the children!"

The redheaded beauty rolls her eyes at this, "Please, Kai. You make it sound like you've never pulled a stunt."

"That's different," he snorts defensively, "I'm paid to do that. Besides, I'm just looking out for my bro here. He looks like one of those gay models that you see in those magazines."

"Hey," Sehun pouts.

Jinri can only say "I understand now why you hate the Western names we're assigned at school, Jon - Kai. Sehunnie, what on earth were they thinking when they gave you that name?"

And Sehun is really hungry and really tired and really not in the mood to argue, so he just mumbles, "How am I supposed to know? I don't think that I even passed that class." There is a pause before he embarrassedly asks, "But can we please get our luggage now? I really want to change my clothes."

Author's Notes;  omfg, this is so short i'M SORRY. *sobs* I was hoping that this chapter would match up to the previous one (~4,600 words), but unfortunately, it fell a bit short. however, krystal has finally been introduced! i was hoping to give her more screentime, but i felt like this was a good stopping point for the chapter (and i also really wanted to get this up because i kneW THE ALBUM WOULD BE RELEASED TODAY I KNEW IT). there was a lot of sesul in here (but hey, they're the two that are actually dating right now so it's to be expected LOL), but next time around, i'm hoping to spend more time developing krystal's character.

and i'd like to apologize in advance for the late-ish update. i would've updated a week or two ago, but a sudden surge of feels hit me and i wrote a kaistal/kailli one-shot. LOL, WHOOPS. If you're interested, I'd love for you to check it out here!

thanks for reading! i'd appreciate any and all feedback that you have to give me.

(ON ANOTHER NOTE WHAT DOES THIS MEAN. IS THERE ANOTHER MV RELEASE THAT I JUST DON'T KNOW ABOUT OR ??? ;AAAA; help me out if you know!)

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