CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

 

Winter vacation is usually the time where most people just chill and have fun, but the upper class has their own different ways of spending the holidays. It was all over the news and the internet. From Choi Jinri’s African trip to Son Seungwan’s Canadian getaway, they don’t seem to be very normal for the middle class. It has been the subject of their conversations ever since the vacation started.

 

“Wait, why are we stalking these kids again?” Taehyung asks both Namjoon and Seokjin. They met up to play Starcraft, but it seems like their plans changed.

 

“I don’t know. But isn’t it satisfying to look at their pictures?” Seokjin says.

 

Unlike the two who were gushing about the pictures of Kang Seungyoon and his family horseback riding in Australia, Namjoon was actually reading the article, and the 8 first articles that he has clicked. He reads every detail attentively amidst the noise Seokjin and Taehyung are making.

 

“, is that a hot tub?”

 

“Damn, look at those cars!”

 

“Boys,” Namjoon finally says something, making the two look at him. “Let’s get some soju.”

 

It wasn’t a question so he didn’t wait for their answers. He has already stood up, and Seokjin follows, but Taehyun sat there confused.

 

“But I thought we were going to play Starcraft…”

 

 

Ah, London. One of the world's most popular and important city. The home to Eddie Redmayne, Benedict Cumberbatch and of course, the Queen. What’s more to love? Soojung is absolutely in love with the city. Yes, even its crappy weather. But what she loves the most was what was happening in the city with her family…

 

She and her siblings are actually hanging out, and she cannot believe it.

 

And no, it’s not just her and Jessica, or it was just her and Jaejoong hanging out. The three of them were hanging out together.

 

After watching a thriller movie together the other day, which Soojung hated but had to pretend that she did, Jaejoong had invited his younger sisters for lunch. She found it weird though, since her brother wasn’t really that type to just treat people out.

 

Their brother has just finished smoking when he sat beside Jessica, much to her annoyance. She never liked the smell of cigarettes and she could still smell the smell of the smoke. As Soojung expected her sister to do, she immediately pulls out her Chanel No. 5 from he purse to spray it all over her brother. Jaejoong just glares at her.

 

“What? You smell horrible.” She flashes him a fake smile.

 

“Anyways,” Jaejoong looks away, trying his best not to strangle her. “I need a favour from you two.”

 

“Why, of course. You wouldn’t ask us to go here if you didn’t need anything-”

 

“And who are you to say that? I actually ask to hang out with you but always refuse. I've been with Soojung a lot of times. Have you actually done that for once?”

 

“For your information, Soojung and I have actually hanged out before. Isn’t that right, Soojung?” Both Jaejoong and Jessica look over Soojung who got startled by the sudden mention of her name. She doesn’t actually remember when she and her sister hanging out.

 

“Listen, Sooyeon-"

 

“Jessica.” She corrects him.

 

“Whatever.” He sighs. “I am here to ask you… If you we could hang out with our family more often-”

 

“Yes.” He hasn’t even finished yet, but Soojung has already answered happily.

 

“I mean, not just us three. Let’s spend more time with our parents, especially our father, yeah?”

 

“That’s sweet and all, but why?” Jessica asks.

 

“Yeah, is there something wrong with our father?” Soojung adds.

 

“No, no! There’s nothing wrong. Father’s perfectly fine.” Jaejoong assures them. “I just think we should do that, you know?”

 

Jessica rolls her eyes, unsatisfied by his answer. “I swear to God, if you want us to do this is because you watched that fish movie again-”

 

“It’s not about Finding Nemo, Jessica! It’s because it’s just natural for people to be with their parents no matter how old they get!”

 

“Who are you to say that, dear brother? You don’t even live in the mansion anymore!”

 

“At least I live with my significant other!”

 

“Oh no.” Soojung thought to herself.

 

Jessica pauses, before finally cussing. Thankfully, even though the people are looking at them, she was cursing in Korean so they wouldn’t really know what she was talking about.

 

 

A Nam Taehyun all boys’ party is always held in his suite where he lives, and being the hotel heir that he is, it’s really easy to sneak people in and do it there. But ever since his father has heard of that little accident with Ehra High last year, he was disallowed to do his yearly New Years’ party there. Fortunately for him, Song Mino has contacted his cousin for him to hold his party in his club.

 

And unfortunately for them, as soon as they entered the club, their vibe was immediately killed seeing an eyesore…

 

Or should I say eyesores…

 

“Mate, I know I’ve drunk a little on the way here, but please tell me that I'm just imagining that Kim Namjoon and his minions are here.” Taehyun grabs Mino’s shoulders as he laughs half-heartedly.

 

Mino shoves him away. “What the ? I don’t know why they’re here.”

 

They weren’t really hard to spot. They were literally in front, near the DJ and it seems like they’re very good friends with them.  Before his friends could even go in front and make a scandalous scene, Jinwoo blocks their way.

 

“Now, now gentlemen.” He stops them from passing through the dance floor to go there. “Let’s be civil here. We shall not make something we will regret.” Jinwoo glances at his rival, who was now looking at them with a smirk, and then looks back at his friends. “At least not here.”

 

He drags them to the VIP lounge upstairs, the place Mino supposedly reserved for them. But he forgets one, the person who Namjoon doesn’t want to see the most, Kim Jongin. By just looking at each other’s eyes, they understand what they should do - a small talk. They walk at the same time and stops at the very centre of the dance floor.

 

“What a pleasant surprise. First, the café and now, this club. You people are seriously levelling up.” Jongin laughs. “I see someone’s been doing some illegal things, eh?”

 

His rival laughs along. “Between me and you, we know who did something illegal. Painting a graffiti near Ehra? I expected more of you. That's vandalism. You’re lucky we didn’t sue you.”

 

“A middle class suing an upper class? Well isn’t this new? We both know who will win if this get to the court.”

 

Namjoon looks at the glass window above them, where the VIP lounge is and where all the Imperium Academy boys were at. It seems like they were telling Jongin to come up as they were making weird gestures at him.

 

“It was nice to talk to you, but it seems like you’re needed there.”

 

Jongin scoffs. “I wish I could say the same to you.”

 

“Happy New Year, Kim Jongin.” Namjoon smiles. Before he leaves, he says something for the last time, “And oh by the way, take care of Soojung.”

 

 

“Jung Soojung, wake up.”

 

“Five minutes…”

 

“Hey. This is me, your sister and if you don’t wake up-”

 

“Oh, Jessica unnie!” Soojung literally jumps out of her bed upon hearing her sister. She never liked waking up, so even though she hated getting up the bed, she shows a smile on her face after finding out that it was her sister who was waking her up. “What’s up?”

 

“I’m going to leave the hotel and I just want to inform you that there’s a package waiting for you outside-”

 

“A package?” She asked, surprised. “From who? I don’t know anyone here. I wish I do though.”

 

“Me too.” Jessica sighs. “Well actually, it’s not really a package. It’s a bouquet of flowers. Someone sent it to you.”

 

Still confused, Soojung stood there in front of her sister, scratching her head with her brows furrowed. It was until her sister orders her to go and check it out when she leaves her room. She stops as soon as she sees a huge bouquet of white roses in the coffee table, and only one person pops out of her mind…

“Was Jongin here? Did he give this to you?” She asks her sister, but Jessica just looks at her weirdly.

 

“Uhm, no. Did you dream of him or something?” She laughs.

 

Blushing, Soojung ignores her sister teasing her and just went to read the note that was attached in the bouquet. Her face lights up again as her sister tries to peek on the note.

 

Happy New Year Beautiful – Jongin

 

 

They were never told to fight the Ehra High students. They never intended to hurt them. They just wanted to scare them, and back off a little. But if they throw the first punch, it’s just normal to fight back. Isn’t it?

 

The feeling of punching someone in the face was just horribly good. Even though he had taken Taekwondo classes before and is actually quite good at it, he never actually thought of fighting someone. He had done it before, but why does it feel good to do it to someone innocent? Why can’t he stop?

 

He stood straight, his eyes bulging with rage and stared right into his opponent’s eyes. He had punched him quite a lot of times already that a bruise had appeared on his right eye. He clenches his fist another time and hits the poor guy again that he fell and spitted blood.

 

“You’re a monster, Kim Jongin.” Says Kim Namjoon, who he unknowingly didn’t think that was going to be the next captain of Ehra High’s team in the next season. “You’re sick. You’re sick!”

 

His words rang into his head repeatedly. Suddenly he forgot about everything so he lets him go. At the very same time, the police sirens were heard from the distance. Everybody started to flee the scene to avoid to be seen. He was about to go as well, until he sees his good friend Taeyong. He was still throwing punches at the defenseless body that he was holding.

 

“Mate, let’s go. The police are coming.”

 

“Leave me alone, Jongin.”

 

“Come on, mate. They’re almost-”

 

“I said, leave me the alone!”

 

The boy finally looks up to him, and he sees the look in his eyes. It was strange. Very strange. The sound of the police coming was a lot close. He had no choice but to leave him there with the some other Ehra students who were unable to move.

 

The sudden sound that came from his phone woke Jongin up from the nightmare he was having. He was sweating a lot from the fear of seeing that scene again. He closes his eyes and runs his hand through his hair. He had been feeling guilty ever since it happened. It has actually been a long time since he dreamt of that, and he didn’t understand why it was coming back again. 

 

Lazily, he reaches for his phone at the night table next to his bed. He didn’t really care about who was calling him until he sees Soojung’s name at the caller ID.

 

“Hello?” He answers.

 

“Sorry. Were you sleeping?”

 

“No, I wasn’t. Well, yeah I was. But it’s okay. I’m okay. I just dreamt of something…”

 

“Did you dream of me?” Soojung jokes, making him chuckle.

 

“I wish I did.”

 

“Anyways, thank you for the white roses that you sent me. They’re very lovely.” She walks over to the flowers to smell them. “At first, I thought it was you who delivered the flowers. I know that you’re into surprises.”

 

Jongin walks to the curtains in his room to open them. “Would you have preferred if I was the one who delivered them to you?”

 

His fiancé took a long pause before saying, “Maybe.”

 

“Wait, did you say white roses? I told them pink roses! I want a refund.”

 

“White roses are still lovely, Jongin. I like any kind of rose, actually.”

 

“Yeah, but my wifey likes pink roses more.” He grins after hearing her laugh from the other line. “Jihoon really misses you. I don’t think he knows that you left. He keeps on trying to talk to me!”

 

“Aw, tell him I miss him too! Gosh, now I want to kiss him. Please kiss him for me. Kiss him a lot.”

 

“Oh so if I tell you that I miss you, would you want to kiss me then?” He teases. She laughs a lot more.

 

“I want to kiss Jihoonie because he’s cute. And he has chubby cheeks.”

 

“What?! Are you telling me I’m not cute?!”

 

“You don’t have chubby cheeks.”

 

After quite ten minutes of talking on the phone, Soojung eventually had to go. It was fun talking with her on the phone, but for Jongin ten minutes weren’t enough. But still, he was glad to hear her voice after a long time.

 

“I’m coming home in four days.” She informs.

 

“Are you telling me to pick you up?”

 

“No, I was just informing you.”

 

“Alright, alright. I guess I’ll see you then?”

 

“Yeah. Good morning! I mean- Good afternoon?”

 

“Yes, it it’s afternoon here. Goodbye.” Jongin was hesitating to say something, but has decided to just do it. “I miss you.”

 

Soojung giggles. “I miss you too.”

 

 

The day Soojung arrived in Seoul, she didn’t visit Jongin, which he understands since he knows how important sleeping is to her. But what he didn’t understand why she told Chanyeol, Jinri and Sehun to gather in his apartment the next day. Why do they have to go there? Why can’t she just visit him alone?

 

“What are you doing?” Jinri peeks at whatever Jongin was doing with his phone while they were waiting for Soojung to arrive.

 

“Park Chanyeol, get your girlfriend away from me.” He stands up from his seat and walks away from her. But when he tried to leave the room, Sehun blocks his way to steal his phone.

 

“Why are you stalking Soojung on instagram?” Sehun asks, judging him. After hearing what he said, the lovebirds Chanyeol and Jinri stands behind him to look at Jongin’s phone and then joins Sehun on judging him.

 

“What? There’s nothing wrong with looking at somebody’s instagram! Don’t look at me like that!”

 

“Dude, you’re looking at her picture that was published a year ago.” Chanyeol states as Jinri grabs the phone from Sehun to like the picture.

 

Horrified, Jongin chases Jinri who runs away from him. She was able to escape from the living room with the help of the boys who tried to calm him down, but deep inside they were laughing along seeing Jongin lose his .

 

“Guys, I'm here!”

 

The voice of Soojung echoed throughout the penthouse. Everybody stops from what they’re doing to greet her. Jongin  rushed to greet her, only to be stopped by Jinri who tosses his phone to him. She immediately hugs her after seeing her.

 

“Oh, I missed you Jung!” She hugs her tightly.

 

“What are those?” Sehun peeks at paper bags that she brought only to be shooed by the girl.

 

“No peeking, Sehun! Now, if everyone could just sit down so I could give out my gifts.”

 

“Gifts? What for?” Chanyeol asks in confusion.

 

“Just go there.” She says, pushing her beside his girlfriend.

 

When they’re finally sited at the couch with confused expression on their faces, Soojung stood in front of them. One by one, she takes out her gifts. A brown Hermes bag and some make up for her best friend even though she has a lot of those already, she seemed happy receiving them. She also gave Beats by Dr. Dre for Chanyeol since his other one was broken and a Burberry scarf for Sehun.

 

“Oh! I bought some Arsenal jerseys for you boys but I didn’t know anyone in the team so I had to Google who the cutest one. I thought Olivier Giroud is super attractive that’s why I bought the number 12 jersey.”

 

She unintentionally throws the shirts to the boys’ faces as she searches for more gifts that she bought.

 

“Ugh, I hate that man.” Jongin mumbles.

 

“Jongin,” She calls him out. “I’ll give you my gift later.” She puts up an okay sign with her fingers and winks. He doesn’t know why but he felt his cheeks redden.

 

“These are really lovely, Soojung. But, what are these for?” Sehun suddenly appears in her sight with her gifts in his hands. She steals the scarf and wraps it around his neck.

 

“Because it’s Christmas, Sehun.” She answers happily.

 

“It’s already 2016.”

 

“Yes, but I still want to pretend that it’s still Christmas.”

 

Her friends exchanged looks. Soojung was acting a little strange. As if she wasn't already strange anyways.

 

“Honey,” Jinri stand ups to hug her. “Did you do drugs or something in London?”

 

“Of course not! I’ll never do drugs. Not without your consent. I’m just really, really happy right now.” She dramatically looks up, as if she was talking to someone from that angle. It made her friends look up as well. “We live in such a beautiful world, don't we?”

 

“Okay, there’s really something wrong with her.” Jongin comments. “She never says things like that.”

 

“I agree.” Chanyeol nods.

 

“Wow, okay. When I’m happy it automatically means that there’s something wrong with me?” She glares at them, but immediately changes her expression. “No, I’m not going to get mad.”

 

“Jokes aside, what really happened for you to be so happy?” Jinri asked curiously.

 

Soojung looks at her friends and says seriously, “There may be a possibility that my family can actually become a family this year.”

 

The room suddenly became silent by her revelation. Jongin couldn’t help but to feel sad, thinking that she should have been that happy with her happy ever since she was young.

 

 

The five friends spent the night together at Jongin’s penthouse to watch a movie. The boys and girls would usually prefer different genres, but that night they all agreed to watch the same movie. And since nobody wanted to cook, they just ordered 3 boxes of pizza for dinner.

 

The night has come to end, and they eventually had to leave. But Soojung tells them to go ahead and leave her there. She still had to give her 'gift' to Jongin anyways.

 

“Aye, what’s wrong?” Jongin asks, poking her cheeks. She doesn’t react as she was searching stuffs again in her paper bags.

 

“I bought toys for the kids.” She hands him a huge paper filled with different toys. “I mean, for Jihoon and Somin. I hope you don’t mind.”

 

“Oh, not at all. Thanks. Where’s mine though?”

 

That’s when she started to laugh awkwardly. “About that… I think you'll hate me for this. I may have thought to give you one gift that serves both as your birthday gift and a Christmas gift.”

 

“I don’t see any problem with that.” Honestly, he didn’t really care about gifts at all. He was just a bit jealous that the boys had their own gifts.

 

“I don’t think you will like the gift that I made you.”

 

“You made me a gift?” He doesn’t even know what it is, but he thinks he already like it.

 

Smiling weirdly, she takes out 5 pieces of paper from her purse. Jongin, not knowing that those were his gift, just stared at them for a long time until she hands them to him. One by one, he reads the paper.

 

Maid for a week

Free massage for a week

Free lunch for a week

Tutor you in English

 

“Okay, I am very, very confused. What are these?” He asks, holding them up.

 

“My hand made coupons!” She answers cheerfully. “I used to give the same thing to my brother. Basically, you have to give me the coupon that you want me to do, and I have to do it.”

 

“You should have bought me something.”

 

“But you literally have everything. A beautiful apartment, sports cars, lots of money, a beautiful and amazing fiancé-” Jongin doesn’t say anything but nods in agreement. “A closet full of branded clothes, shoes and-”

 

“The last paper doesn’t have anything on it.”

 

“I didn’t really know what else to put so I thought you might have something on your mind?”

 

Jongin searches for a pen somewhere in his apartment. When he found one, he quickly goes back to the living room where Soojung and the papers were. She tries to look at the paper while he was writing, but he kept on shoving her. He keeps the last coupon away from her sight when he finished.

 

“Can I at least look at it so I could know what to do?” He doesn’t answer her question, and instead, he grabs the first four coupons and tears them in half. “What the ? What have you done?”

 

“This is the only thing I want you to do.” He hands her the coupon that he made and excitedly grabs it from him.

 

“Be my girlfriend for a day.” She reads it in a loud voice. She looks at him who didn’t show any expression and just had his poker face on. “Aw, Jongin! You can just ask me out if you want you know.”

 

“Idiot.” He reaches for her forehead and flicks it with his fingers. She immediately punches him back. “Don’t get too cocky. I just want to know how you act when you were with Derek.”

 

“Oh, I was really sweet when I was with him.” She smiles, reminiscing her past love life.

 

“Besides, I don’t really need a maid. Or any massage, or any food. At least not from you since your cooking is horrible-”

 

“Ouch.”

 

“And I’m quite good in English, so I don’t need any tutoring.”

 

“Says that kid who has the lowest grade in class.” The girl mumbles.

 

“I heard that.” He throws her a dirty look. “Anyways, are you in or what?”

 

Soojung took a long time to answer, until she finally says, “Yeah, I’m in. But just because I also want to know how you acted to your ex-girlfriends.”

 

“You’re going to have the best date of your life.” She wasn't sure if he was joking since he was smirking, but decided to just play along.

 

“Oh, I cannot wait. If I do enjoy it, I'll give you a kiss." She jokes.

 

author's note: 

You guys... I won't let Soojung miss the most important day for Jongin aka his birthday just because... IDK I love them too much. XD I don't even know why I made Jongin write that. I mean, they're basically engaged now. What's the point of asking her as a girlfriend even for a day? This is just my excuse for them to hang out and cuddle lmao I'm sorry. The next chapter might be a little boring since it's not yet the 'date', but I bet that y'all will love chapter 27.