31: When Kris and Xiumin got married, Kris thought his biggest struggle would be hiding his wedding ring—not losing it. Pairing!XiuKris, Canon!Fluff, Newlywed!Fluff

As the completely complicit second party, Xiumin was obviously the first to know about Kris' marriage. EXO had sung in Las Vegas' biggest arena for the first time, and once the concert was over, Kris had managed to convince his long time boyfriend to marry him, just like that. They'd eloped, secretly, at 2 am on an early Sunday morning; sneaking out of the hotel like bandits and sneaking back in like the love birds they truly were.

"Congratulations, Mr. Wu," Kris grinned down at Xiumin as he suddenly swept his new husband into his arms and carried the Korean man across the threshold of their hotel room.

"Congratulations to you, Mr. Kim." Xiumin barely had time to respond because Kris' eager mouth was quickly against his own as their bodies fell together onto the bed. Their celebrations lasted through the night, such that Tao had commented the next morning about how "Min-ge's circles are even darker than mine! Who's the panda now, huh?"

Since Suho was their precious leader, and the boss when the manager hyungs weren't around, he was the third person to find out. When Xiumin had stopped by Suho and Kyungsoo's room to mention he and the EXO-M leader were going out for a few hours, Suho had noticed a asive blush below fading love bites. Naturally he'd been curious enough to get the truth from Xiumin eventually, and had even offered to purchase their wedding rings as his gift to their new marriage.

"That's why you're going out for a bit, isn't it?" He'd asked, almost positive and hoping his hyung would accept his money present.

"Yeah," Xiumin blushed as Kris appeared behind his husband's shoulder in the doorframe and added, "We're making it official."

"The government makes marriages official," Kyungsoo corrected smartly when he surprised them all by stepping out of the bathroom and becoming the fourth person privy to Kris and Xiumin's secret. "Rings are just for you."

Kris shrugged, unperturbed. "So? Is it bad that I want people to know that Minnie's taken, that he's mine?"

Suho and Kyungsoo shook their heads in denial and it was eerie how in tune their movements were. "You do realize, though," Kyungsoo added thoughtfully, "that you can't where those when we perform, right?"

Evidently Suho agreed, because he nodded and remarked, too, "The fans wouldn't be able to handle it, I think. Couple rings, maybe, but a surprise wedding?—and to each other? Definitely not."

"You should probably hide them from the manager hyungs too, actually," Kyungsoo suggested after a pause. "The less they know, the better."

Neither Kris not Xiumin felt the need to hide their relationship, but neither was interested in ruining their career over possible scandal, either. They agreed, then, as they walked hand in hand in and out of jewelry stores, armed with Suho's credit card and their marriage certificate, that they would wear their rings on matching chains around their necks; that way the both knew, but no one else needed to.

Five and six happened a lot sooner than expected, though, because once the group was back in Seoul, Kris accidentally left his ring on the sink after showering one morning. In his panic to find it before Xiumin realized it was gone, he didn't think to check about the bathroom's occupants after him, so it was with great horror that he burst in to find Tao and Chen going at it in the shower. He tried not to look as he blundered blindly about for the chain, but when his lack of vision got his wedding ring accidentally knocked down the drain, Kris had needed the other two's help to get it out again.

They'd finished their shower quickly as he freaked out, refusing to leave and hovering over the basin even as they washed each other's backs with soap—and other things. When they finally emerged, Tao in loose sweats and Chen in only a towel, Kris had actually been too distraught to remember his and Xiumin's marriage was supposed to be a secret. He got his ring back—thank god—but in return for their assistance, Tao and Chen had discovered the juiciest gossip of the year.

The members all knew, of course, that Kris and Xiumin were together; probably, since Kris wasn't really known for his subtlety, their manager hyungs knew too. Yet their relationship just happened to be more or less an unmentionable subject; something that came up sometimes in Chen's teasing or Luhan's compliments, but remained largely undiscussed for communal fear of outside discovery.

When Luhan became the seventh of twelve to find out, though, Kris and Xiumin's PDA had come up in rare conversation. He'd been praising their ability to keep public displays of affection to a minimum, and it was Tao who admitted to being equally impressed.

"If I were married," he commented thoughtlessly, "I'd want to be all over my husband all the time." Tao looked at Chen and his lips with a wink.

Chen, in turn, added, "I just don't know how our hyungs do it."

Luhan was understandably shocked and outraged at being kept out of the loop for so long, and by the time the other couple realized that they were supposed to have kept their hyungs' secret, it was too late—they'd let out the beast. Surprisingly, though, Luhan proved to be quite the stellar secret keeper, so it was Kris' fault, again, that yet another member found out.

"Have you seen my necklace?" The Chinese-Canadian rapper rushed into the dorm living room late one night, disturbing Sehun's We Got Married marathon.

"Way to be vague, hyung," Sehun dead panned carelessly. Kris' necklace was of no concern to him, especially since the Khuntoria couple was being adorably jealous again. When Kris didn't move from where he stood blocking Sehun's view of the TV, though, the younger grudgingly got up to help his hyung search the room.

"It's a silver chain with a platinum ring on it." Kris explained what they were looking for after Sehun reiterated the impossibility of finding something when he didn't know what it was.

At the mention of a ring, though, Sehun was curious enough to pause his search and ask, "Like a couple ring or what?"

"Something like that," Kris muttered sheepishly.

Sehun was about to berate the rapper for losing something as important as that when his fingers brushed cool metal and he unearthed a thin chain with a dangling ring from the couch. Before Kris could snatch it from his dongsaeng's grasp, Sehun noticed an inscription on the inside and realized just how important that "couple ring" really was.

"You got married?!" He practically shrieked and even Kris' muffling hands across Sehun's mouth couldn't keep the sound from carrying.

An adorably groggy Xiumin emerged from his and Kris' room with a yawn and a confused, "It's almost midnight, Sehunnie. Why are you yelling?"

"You got married?!" He hissed again, this time to Xiumin. "When? Where? Why wasn't I invited?"

Xiumin shot his sheepishly guilty husband an annoyed glare that puffed his cheeks cutely despite his attempt to appear angry. "It was impromptu, Sehun, okay. Relax. And you," he returned his gaze to Kris, who gulped audibly and pouted, "our maknae's, what, the fifth person who knows about us?"

Kris coughed and turned red. "Make that eighth," he mumbled under his breath as Xiumin's eyes widened hugely.

"Eight?!" He was the one shrieking now. "Six other people know that we're married? Are you kidding me right now?"

Before Kris could calm his husband down with bad aegyo and an apologetic "Yeobo," though, Kai emerged from his, Sehun's, and Chanyeol's room to comment, "Better make that seven people, Xiumin-hyung." He shrugged in response to the other there's gapes and continued explanatorily, "Min-hyung's voice was really loud."

And so it was only Chanyeol, Baekhyun, and Lay who remained the last of EXO's uninformed members. The latter didn't know his leader and his oldest gege had gotten married because he was simply too distracted to notice; this remained true even when Kris lost his necklace yet again, and Lay found it and proceeded to wear the wedding ring chained around his neck for an entire day, completely oblivious.

As for the other two, Chanyeol and Baekhyun were so caught up in each other, that even a meteor hitting the planet wouldn't keep their gazes from each other. Xiumin was surprised, actually, that he and Kris had beaten EXO's popular BaekYeol couple to the altar; sure, the elders had been together longer, but Chanyeol and Baekhyun's passion for each other was just so fervent.

Despite the various reasons why, though, Chanyeol, Baekhyun, and Lay all found out eventually; and not long after Sehun and Kai, either. Lay's discovery came when Kris appeared suddenly to ask for the necklace back, explaining its significance so that Lay would willingly return it. The Chinese dancer hadn't been surprised—had even muttered "I knew it!"—and had happily given back the ring once Kris promised to buy him beer the next time they went out for Chinese together.

Baekhyun and Chanyeol's realization, though, was surprisingly not related to Kris' apparent inability to hold on to his wedding ring. Instead, the two had been interested in a quick make out before a variety show appearance, and had accidentally discovered that the newlywed's had a similar plan of their own. When Baekhyun had imperiously demanded his hyungs leave so he and Chanyeol could fit in a quickie, too, Xiumin had declared ferociously, "Husbands win over boyfriends, so no."

Everyone had been so shocked—though for a variety of reasons, obviously—that Baekhyun couldn't muster any reaction other than to grab his boyfriend firmly by the hand to drag them both back out of the room. Later, he and Chanyeol had both wished their beloved hyungs heartfelt congratulations, and Xiumin had signed that secrets were practically impossible to keep in a group as large as 12.

"Well," Kris tried to comfort as he pushed his husband onto one of the lower bunks and settled comfortably above him with his lips ling Xiumin's neck. "At least the manager hyungs don't know."

Xiumin moaned, and neither knew if the sound was for the pleasure of Kris's hot and trailing mouth, or for the idea of their manager's finding out.

"Please," he begged, his breathlessness now definitely attributable to Kris' deliciously wandering hands as they moved lower and lower down Xiumin's smaller body, "don't jinx it."