CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

 

Just like how Jinri told her that she was going to make her forget her worries, Soojung was quickly distracted as soon as they stepped on the airplane. While Sehun, being the owner of the plane, was busy talking to the staff, the rest of their classmates were too occupied enjoying the stuff that they could do inside the luxurious plane such as drinking at the bar and just chill out together at the lounge.

 

But Soojung has a different way of enjoying herself. She was watching a movie with Jinri when she fell asleep midway. She didn’t actually expect her to fall asleep quickly, but Jinri just let her. After putting a blanket around her, Jinri stands up to go to the bathroom.

 

As soon as he sees Jinri head to the bathroom, Jongin walks over to their seat to sit beside her. He has been glancing at Soojung ever since they arrived at the airport but wasn’t able to talk with her alone because she quickly got surrounded by the excited Seulgi, Seungwan and Sooyoung so he takes this as a chance to talk to her alone. But then, he sees her with her eyes closed. His lips automatically curve into a smile after seeing her sleeping peacefully like that.

 

Just when he was carefully placing her head into his shoulders, giving him major déjà vu feels since he did the same thing when they went to Los Angeles together, he suddenly sees Jinri in front of him. At first, he thought that she was about to get mad for stealing her seat, but she actually looked surprise but in a good way. Instead of telling him to move, she actually just smiles cheekily at him. And when Jinri passes by them to go somewhere else, Soojung tightens her grip on his shoulder, as if she was indicating for him to stay.

 

Soon after his little giggles, he falls asleep as well. But their comfortable cuddling was soon disrupted by a flash and some whispers that they heard…

 

“Idiot, why didn’t you take off the flash first?”

 

“Well, sorry man. I was just too excited to take a picture of them.”

 

“Jongin will surely kill you all when he wakes up.”

 

“Take another one, take another one!”

 

At that very moment, Jongin slowly opens his eyes to see Seungyoon, Mino, Jinwoo and Taehyun, their jaws dropping as they didn’t expect for him to actually wake up so soon. Compared to their awkward smiles and shocked expressions, Jongin wasn’t very happy to see them.

 

“If Jung Soojung wasn’t sleeping beside me, I could have strangled you all!” Jongin exclaims, but still he manages to kick the person who was the standing the nearest to him, which was Taehyun.

 

“Ouch! Why do you always hurt me?!” Taehyun screams. Unknowingly to the boys, Soojung was slowly waking up.

 

“Dude, we’re sorry, alright? It’s just the owner the plane says that if we don’t take a picture of you and Soojung, he will kick us out.” Seungyoon explains, pouting a little.

 

Jongin frowns. Of course, Sehun would do something so stupid like that. “Oh ing Sehun, get your over here!” He screams, and he hears his laughter seats away from where he was.

 

“Ugh, can you ers shut the hell up? I’m trying to sleep-” Soojung suddenly burst out after hearing the boys arguing at each other. She was still sleepy and had her eyes half open until she realizes that she had just cursed in front of her classmates whom she doesn’t usually curse in front of. “I-I mean… Uhm, Jinri?! Where’s Jinri?” Panicking, she quickly stood up from her seat to pretend that she was looking for her best friend, but upon realizing that she was walking with only her socks, she goes back to her seat to get her boots.

 

“Did you just call us ers?” Mino asked. He was more amused than offended, honestly.

 

“W-what? No, I didn’t!” She laughs awkwardly, putting her shoes on the seat next to her. “I was just-”

 

“Soojung, you’re awake already?” Thankfully, her best friend comes after hearing her voice, preventing her to explain. “Did they wake you up-”

 

Before she finishes her sentence, Soojung has pulled Jinri to God knows where. They’d probably go to the spa to have a quick massage or something. After watching the girls go, Jongin snatches Mino’s phone from his hand. He was planning to get angry at them for taking pictures of them discreetly, but after seeing how cute the picture turned out, he might reconsider his feelings.

 

“Send this picture to me later.”

 

 

After 14 hours stuck doing nothing at the airplane, the senior students of Imperium Academy finally arrives at the big apple. Most of them have been to New York so they weren’t really that excited to be there, but Soojung was quite happy. Aside from the fact that she knows that she’ll be forgetting about her problems for a while, she also realized that it was actually her first time going abroad with her friends.

                                                                                                                          

They were given exactly 30 minutes to go up to their designated rooms, rest a little and go back again to the lobby. They were all going out to have dinner together at a buffet and even though they were all tired, they were also super hungry so most of them showed up at the lobby earlier than expected.

 

“Did you know that the hotel we’re staying at is the same hotel from Gossip Girl? You know the one where Serena used to live at on Season One?” Seungwan says excitedly, forgetting about the food that she has in front of her. “What if we suddenly see Chuck Bass somewhere or-”

 

“Silly girl, you do know that Chuck Bass is a fictional character, right?” Sooyoung shakes her head by what her friend said, but then proceeds on saying, “I’d rather see Nate Archibald.”

 

Seulgi, the only one who refused to see the series despite her best friends asking her to, could only sigh. “I knew I should have asked Headmaster Son to look for another hotel.”

 

As Jinri laughed at how the girls were acting, she briefly looks at her best friend, who was sitting beside her. She expected her to be laughing as well, but instead she found her looking at another direction with a smile on her face. She looks at the direction where she was looking and her eyebrow raises in amusement.

 

“Having fun, I see?”

 

Soojung immediately looks at her after hearing her voice. “Yes, I am. I love Gossip Girl as well. I can’t wait-”

 

“Are you even thinking of Gossip Girl?”

 

“Of course, Jinri. We’re talking about the show, aren’t we? Why would you even say that?”

 

“Well, because you are not even looking at us. Your eyes were at Jongin.”

 

“Correction, my eyes were at the painting behind him.” She sticks her tongue out. “I like the painting.”

 

“Sure, Soojung. Whatever you say.” Jinri rolls her eyes.

 

“Did somebody say painting?” Sooyoung asks excitedly. “We’re going to a museum tomorrow and I’m so excited!”

 

What Soojung doesn’t know is that at the other side of the restaurant, she was the talk of the boys. Well, she and Jongin actually. They were talking about the pre-wedding photoshoot that Jongin had mentioned before and as soon as Taehyun asked him about it, they haven’t stopped talking about it.

 

“I won’t say anything anymore. You will all have a copy of one the pictures when I give you the invitation anyways.”

 

“But how did she look like?”

 

Jongin paused for a moment, thinking of a proper word to describe how gorgeous she looked without his friends noticing his real feelings. But the scene of Soojung in her wedding dress suddenly flashes in her mind, and he gets flustered. “W-well, she looked the same. I mean, she looked nice, as always. There’s nothing more to say.”

 

“That’s it?” Mino frowns. “We were expecting you to say something poetic and Shakespeare like!”

 

“Yeah! ‘Her eyes were like pearls, they were so beautiful, so precious and pure…’ something like that!” Seungyoon exclaims in an attempted British accented, causing his friends to laugh at him.

 

“You’re making me sound that I love her or something…” Jongin mumbles, avoiding everyone’s gazes as he blush a little. He wasn’t even looking at him, but he knows that Sehun was rolling his eyes after what he said.

 

 

Their first day in New York consisted of them going to a museum, a library and an opera house. For people like them, those were the best kind of places to go to as they enjoy things such as art, history and classical music. Jongin was one of the students who were happy that they’re visiting such places… until he remembers that Soojung wasn’t in her class.

 

“Who had the brilliant idea of separating the seniors into their respective class anyways? him, or her.” He thought to himself, though he knows that it does make sense that they were segregated because there were a lot of them.

 

Since he couldn’t pull her close to him, or even hold her hand because she was with the other group, he could only watch her from afar just like a creepy little stalker that he is, according to Sehun. There was this time at the museum when he got scolded at by his professor because he kept on looking on where her group was instead of actually listening to the tour guide talking about Andy Warhol’s life. He didn’t even want to listen to it, not because he didn’t like Warhol. In fact, he loved his art and has heard of his story a million times. It’s just his mind was pretty much occupied by another person that he adored.

 

The same thing happened at the opera house, except that he didn’t get scolded at this time. He was sitting a few chairs away from the other class, and it was really hard to steal glances at Soojung especially when the show started. But he found her expressions much more entertaining than the show itself. Whenever the singer would hit a high note, she would be so surprised that she doesn’t even notice how big her eyes were.

 

“Dude, why are you laughing?” Before Chanyeol could look at where he was looking at, Jongin immediately looks back at the stage.

 

“Nothing.”

 

 

The students of Imperium Academy were told that their curfew was 9pm and by 10pm they should be sleeping in their beds already. But of course, most of them don’t follow the rules. And when I say most of them, I meant the boys.

 

Chanyeol and Jongin (together with the intruder Sehun who wasn't really their roommate) were still up even though their teachers have checked if they were sleeping. They were thinking of sneaking out the hotel and roam around the city without anyone noticing. And they won’t leave the girls behind.

 

With the soft knocks on the door, you can almost not hear someone knocking. Thank God Jinri was still up doing her beauty routine because Soojung will never get up to open the door since she was already tucked in her bed like a baby. When Jinri finds out that there is indeed someone knocking on their door, she went ahead to open it. There she finds her boyfriend, smiling widely at her, and Jongin, who was looking around the hallway as if he was a spy. She peeks outside and sees Sehun at the other side of the hallway, who was doing the same thing as him.

 

“Wake Soojung up. We’re going out.” Chanyeol says.

 

“Out? It’s like 10:30 pm.”

 

“So? New York City is the most beautiful when the stars are out.”

 

When Jinri look like she was going to disagree, Chanyeol playfully wiggles her eyebrows and pulls her closer by the waist. He then plants kisses on her cheeks, making the girl giggle. Jongin, who was at the door still looking around the hallway in case a teacher comes, throws a dirty look at the couple.

 

“Stop flirting and wake Soojung up!”

 

“You wake Soojung up! You know how much she hates getting waken up.” Jinri frowns, but proceeds on waking her bestfriend anyways.

 

As she expected, she doesn’t even flinch when she calls her name at her first try to wake her up. She softly shakes her body, and this time Soojung groans.

 

“Honey, dress up. We’re going out.”

 

“I don’t want to. I want to sleep.” She cries. She turns to the other side of the bed to avoid Jinri, but this time it was Chanyeol who tried to wake her up.

 

“We’re going to a club. Don’t you want to go there?”

 

“I don’t care. Leave me alone.”

 

“I’m not going to leave with the boys without you.” She hears Jinri say.

 

“Then just stay here and cuddle with me.”

 

Jinri could only sigh. She knew that it’s hard to keep Soojung from her bed and there was only one thing that could separate them. She looks at her boyfriend and tells him to carry her to the bathroom, which caught him off guard because he knows that she’s going to kill him if he does.  But even Chanyeol knows there’s no other way to keep Soojung up, so he does it anyways and Jinri follows them to the bathroom so she could help her best friend dress up.

 

“Park Chanyeol, I’m going to ing kill you! Let me sleep, damn it!”

 

Even though he was still standing outside the room, Jongin could still hear Soojung screaming and cursing as she got pulled away from her precious bed. Chanyeol comes out of the room shortly after, with his hair looking much messier than before.

 

“They’ll go out in 5 minutes.” He tells him, fixing his hair. Before Jongin could even ask what happened with it, Chanyeol already explains it first. “Soojung pulled my hair when I was about to put her down.”

 

“That’s my girl.” Jongin chuckles.

 

After 5 minutes, the girls finally come out of their room. In comparison to Jinri’s wide smile, Soojung looked very grumpy because her sleep was interrupted. She had her arms crossed and she looked quite tired. When she sees Jongin with his snapback on, she quickly steals it from him to wear it. Her excuse was because she wanted to hide her bare face as she didn’t have enough time to put make up. But he would lend it to her anyways even if she doesn’t have any excuse.

 

“Oh, Soojung! You look cute tonight!” Sehun tried to make her smile once the four walks up to him in front of the elevator, but fails as her expression didn’t change.

 

“Shut the up. I’m very sleepy so don’t on me.”

 

“But I am not!” Sehun pouts while Jinri and Chanyeol just awkwardly smile and Jongin laughs. Oh how much he loved this side of Soojung.

 

But his laughter was cut very short because when they were just about to enter the elevator after it opened, they had realize that the person inside it was one of their professors. And to make it much worse, it was one of the strictest teachers that they have. As he goes out of the elevator, the five friends slowly back away, knowing that they’re in trouble.

 

 

The group of naughty students stood at the corner of the hallway as they got scolded at by their professor. It has been 20 minutes now and he won’t let them leave. Soojung eventually gives up and plops down on the floor, leaning on Jinri’s legs. They were sure that she was trying her best to stay awake.

 

“How foolish of you to even think of sneaking out!”

 

“We just wanted to go out and have fun.” Jongin mumbles.

 

While the professor kept on blabbering, Sehun noticed that the door in his room that he shares with Taehyun opens slightly. A few seconds after, Taehyun hurriedly goes out of the room, followed by Mino, Jinwoo and Seungyoon.

 

“Sir, look! They’re sneaking out as well!”

 

“Nice try, Oh Sehun. But I won’t glance anywhere knowing that you kids might have the possibility to runoff.”

 

After hearing what the professor said, Taehyun playfully sticks his tongue out at them before finally disappearing to escape using the stairs together with the rest of the boys. Sehun could only sigh and bite his lips to prevent himself from cursing in front of his professor.

 

“As consequence of what happened tonight, the five of you will not be joining the rest of your classmates on tomorrow’s fieldtrip.”

 

While her friends groaned in annoyance, Soojung sat there half asleep. It took her a minute to realize what was going on. She immediately stands up to complain. “Sir, am I included?”

 

“I did say the five of you, so yes Miss Jung. You are.”

 

“But Sir! I was even part of this group! They just forced me to come, I swear!” She insists.

 

“But you are here which means you were about to go out with your colleagues.” The older man pointed out.

 

Soojung was about to explain herself again, but wasn’t able to as the professor hushes her. She just pouts, frustrated that she’s going to be stuck in the hotel the next day when she wanted to go out with the rest of her classmates. Plus they were going to Broadway tomorrow. She was most excited about that, but now she won’t be going there anymore. As soon as their professor gets into the elevator again, she plumbs back to the floor, sighing sadly.

 

“Y’all lucky I don’t have enough energy to murder you all.” She tells her friends.

 

 

The second day of their school fieldtrip doesn’t start quite nice for Chanyeol, Jinri, Jongin, Sehun and Soojung. As the rest of the students of their grade assembled at the lobby, they were stuck at the second floor watching them by the stairs. They swear they caught Taehyun looking and laughing at them.

 

To defend himself and his friends, Sehun flashes his middle finger at him, causing the latter to laugh a lot more together with Mino and Seungyoon while Jinwoo, being the only mature one tells them to stop. Before heading out, Taehyun makes sure to look at his friends and wave at them before finally leaving with the rest of the students.

 

“You’ll see your luggage in the trash when you arrive tonight!” Sehun shouts at his roommate.

 

As soon as their classmates leave the hotel, Soojung turns to her friends and gestures them to follow her. They were confused as she started to go downstairs when they weren’t even allowed to wander around the hotel. Their professor had strictly told them that they had to stay in their respective rooms and even though he went with the other students as well, he had talked to one of the managers to keep an eye on them.

 

“Where are you going?” They asked her when she was midway on the stairs.

 

“Uhm, out?” She answers in a tone that sounded like they should have known that. “What? Are you guys seriously thinking that I’m going to lock myself in my room as I stare at the chandeliers?”

 

Her friends exchanged looks, with Jongin looking the most excited. They were totally not expecting her to say that. While Jongin walked down the stairs to go with Soojung excitedly, the others were still frozen at the top of the stairs, unsure if they should disobey their professors again.

 

“What about the manager who was supposedly asked to look after us?” Sehun asked. It made Soojung laugh because just last night, he looked very excited to sneak out but now he looked worried as .

 

“Well, I don’t know maybe we can just bribe him or something? Jeez, Oh Sehun you act as if you don’t have a hundred bucks in your pocket.”

 

“And what if they see us outside?” Chanyeol added.

 

“We can just not go to the places that they’re going today. Does anybody where they’re headed to?” Jongin looks around his friends, excepting one of them to answer.

 

“I’m pretty sure that we had to go to the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty and the Guggenheim Museum.” Jinri was the only who responses. “Other than that, I don’t know where they’re heading to.”

 

“Great. We just have to avoid those places then.”

 

“Aww, but I wanted to go to the Guggenheim Museum though.” Soojung sighs.

 

“But guys, are we seriously, seriously going to sneak up again?” Jinri asks worriedly. Chanyeol and Sehun were slowly getting convinced by both Jongin and Soojung, and it seemed like she was the only one who was against this. “What if we get caught again?”

 

“Oh boo hoo, stop acting like Kang Seulgi.” Sehun says as he passed by her to join Soojung and Jongin at the bottom of the stairs. “Let’s just go and have fun.”

 

“Imagine all the Chanel bags and Yves Saint Laurent shades you can buy here.” Soojung displays her puppy eyes to convince her.

 

“Yeah, but we can buy those stuff back in Seoul, love.” But Soojung didn’t stop acting cute. She even went closer to her just to hug her while telling her that if she loved her, she would come with them. “Alright, alright. I will go with you. But just because I did promise you that we’re going to have fun.”

 

 

The rich kids of Seoul are known for having reserved attitudes and a strict upbringing, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t know how to have fun like normal people do. Despite being in New York for a lot times already, they were still quite excited to be there, especially Soojung, who was back again with her usual self.

 

Their first stop of their very own fieldtrip was, of course, the stores. Because according to Jinri, you can’t just go to New York and not shop. Thankfully, with the help of Soojung, Chanyeol convinced his girlfriend not to buy a lot of stuffs, which meant less shopping bags to carry.

 

The next stop was the Guggenheim museum, despite everybody not wanting to go knowing that their classmates might be there, but Soojung insisted. When they arrived, there weren’t any signs of their friends, but shortly after, Jongin noticed familiar faces entering the museum, causing the trip to cut short. They had to hide and pretend like they were normal tourists when their classmates passed by them, and even though they were really close, they didn’t get noticed. So when they were successfully unnoticed, they quickly exited the museum.

 

But they had to admit it was nerve-wrecking but fun nevertheless.

 

The infamous Central Park was not to be forgotten as they spent their afternoon there. While Jinri offered to buy drinks for her friends, Sehun and Chanyeol decided to play football for a short while with some kids who were playing near their spot. They would ask Jongin to play with them, but he was too busy having his own moment with Soojung.

 

Being the lazy couple that they are, Jongin and Soojung laid at the grass under a tree, with Soojung placing her head in his chest giving him another feeling of déjà vu as they did the same thing back in her birthday party. When Jinri returned, she couldn’t help but smirk, and both Sehun and Chanyeol approached her, joining her in judging them.

 

“Look at those two. How can Soojung not know that he likes her?”

 

“Shall we just tell her ourselves? I mean, wouldn’t it be wonderful to know somebody is crushing on you abroad?”

 

“What a weird way of thinking, Sehun. Anyways, just standing here and looking at them makes us really suspicious-”

 

“Okay, can you three stop judging us and just bring us the ing sodas?” Jongin snaps.

 

As soon as Jinri walked back to them together with the boys, Soojung quickly stands up to grab a can of soda from her best friend. Though it was just a drink, she still looked very happy to have it, even clapping happily after taking a sip. Beside her sat Jongin, laughing at how she was acting. He liked seeing here like that.

 

“Uhm, so… tomorrow you all know that we’re free to go wherever we want, right?” Soojung randomly says, fidgeting with her fingers. “So I was thinking of visiting Los Angeles tomorrow-” Before she could even look at Sehun to ask if he could lend his plane to her, the boy had already freaked out.

 

“Are you kidding me, Soojung? A flight from New York to California last 9 hours! Once you get there, you have to travel back here because our 10 o’clock curfew!”

 

“I know, I know…” She sighs. “But I just wanted to see some of my old friends again, and it would be a pity if I don’t do that right now when I’m literally in the same country as them. I mean, I know someone who did that before.” She then looks at Jongin, referring to that time he went to see Derek the day before her birthday and had literally had to fly back again just to be on time on her birthday party.

 

“I thought you were over Derek?”

 

“I am, Chanyeol. I didn’t say that I was still into him. And besides, I am still friends with him. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

 

“If you want, I can go with you.” Everybody looks at Jongin after what he said, surprised. Soojung was also shocked upon what she heard, but her expression quickly changes to a huge grin.

 

“Here I am, thinking that you’d be the one against it. Turns out you’re the only one who likes my idea.” Soojung then looks at her friends and says, “See? This is how you guys you should act.”

 

“I don’t know, honey. Going to LA tomorrow is very risky…” Jinri tells her. “Sehun and I are going to visit some relatives in The Hamptons tomorrow, why don’t you come with us? Or you could go with Chanyeol, who’s going to Boston-”

 

Before Jinri could even finish her sentence, Soojung has already gasped upon hearing Boston. “Chanyeol, you’re going to Boston?”

 

“Yes, we are.” Jongin answers for, making Chanyeol raise his eyebrow because the last time he asked him if he wanted to come, he said that he didn’t want to.

 

“I thought you didn’t want-”

 

“Well, I do now, okay?”

 

“I love Boston!” Soojung squeals.

 

“You haven’t been there, Soojung.”

 

“I know, but Harvard is located in Boston, therefore I love Boston.”

 

“So you’re coming?” Jongin asks her, hoping she would say yes because he didn’t really want to come with Chanyeol at the first place. After remembering that she had a thing for Harvard, he quickly changes his mind. But Soojung wasn't sure herself if she wants to go. She would love to pay a visit to her dream university, but she really wanted to go to Los Angeles-

 

“Speaking of universities, we only have like 3 months of high school left.” Sehun suddenly mentions, his jaw dropping from what he just realized. “It seems like yesterday when 7 year old Soojung left for LA, and now she’s back and we’re about to become young adults.”

 

“It’s crazy how fast time passes…” Jinri says, leaning to her boyfriend’s shoulder. “I can’t believe that we’re graduating soon.”

 

“Can we not talk about this? I might cry.” Soojung jokes. Even though it was meant as a joke, it was half true as she had a soft spot when it comes to sappy things like that.

 

“I swear to God, if any of you goes to study abroad just like Tao and Kris, I will kill you.” Jongin warns as he looked around the gloomy expressions on his friends by the mention of their future. Everybody was looking at him back, except for Chayeol, who seemed uncomfortable by the subject.

 

“Aww, are you going to miss us?” Soojung teased, causing Jongin to squish her cheeks to annoy her back.

 

“I will miss everyone except for you, wifey.” Soojung was about to punch him in his shoulders when he stopped her, “Hey, no punching. I’m injured, remember?” 

 

“Oops, sorry.”

 

“Uhm, you are not?” Sehun says, making Soojung turn to his direction while Jongin sushes him in the background. “Junmyeon hyung said you were fine though.”

 

And with Sehun’s confirmation, Soojung proceeded to punch her fiancé. “You liar!”

 

author's note: 

Yes, yes I'm alive. :-)

 

Okay so I apologize for the delay, and for the boring chapter. Today's chapter doesn't have much a lot of Kaistal moments, but it's more like a chapter dedicated to their friendship with the squad aka Jinri, Chanyeol and Sehun. One of my many regrets on writing this story was not giving them much screentime as I initially wanted to, especially to Chanyeol and Jinri. They are supposed to be the second couple in the story, but they appear in like every two chapters or something. (Though I think the next chapter is going to be about them? Not sure lol.)

 

Ah, I kind of changed the description on the foreword. It's not much, but please tell me what you think. Should I leave it like that or should I change it back?

 

I hope you all have a wonderful week! <3