❝ chapter sixteen

e r i c ’ s

[blue text = spoken in english]

The plane leaves at 11am. It’s 8:30am and I’m still in bed, staring at the woman next to me in awe. Her pink hairs fall over her face slightly and it looks really good on her, her pale skin makes it stands out even more. She looks even better because she’s actually sleeping in my oversize cream sweatshirt. I give her a slight kiss on the top of her head then gets out of bed. 

Thankfully, we stopped at my house before we came here and Yongsun helped me packed my luggages for today. She stuffed loads of hot pack into my bag and kept on checking if anything was missing. I went in for a quick shower and the clock reached 8:50am when I was done and dressed. Passport checked and everything else were neatly left on the table since yesterday except I didn’t charge my phone last night. Not that I really cared that much though. There won't be any services in the jungle anyway. 

    “Good morning.” I felt a warm breath against my neck and a pair of arms wrapped around my waist just as I was about to grab my power bank. “Are you going to leave now?” 

    “In 10 minutes.” I turned around and kissed the side of her hair. “Did you sleep well?” 

    “Hm.” She mumbled, eyes closed and head comfortably rested on my shoulder. “I have a photoshoot for our album jacket today and I’m already so exhausted.” 

    “Hey, it’s not entirely my fault. You were the one who said you wanted to be a little bit more irresponsible last night.” I shrugged and she grinned, her face flushed and it matched the color of her hair. 

    “Ahh!” She whines and tries to pull a frown. "Stop teasing me."

    I laugh. “I'm not."

She gives me a punch on my arms then turns away, looking anywhere else but at me and I only smile at that. Geez, I have to witnessed a surprising new side of Yongsun last night and an adorable Yongsun right in the early morning. 

Out of the blue, she fixes my shirt and frowns. Her lip purses out a little and she sighs. She doesn’t say anything but I know we both are thinking about the talk last night. She may sounds confident, positive and hopeful even but what we’re about to do, it’s going to be more than just hurting majority of the fans. She has her members, her company and everyone else she truly cares about and I know, Yongsun never wants to burden or hurt anyone of them.  

    “We don’t have to announce it now if you’re not ready.” 

    She nods. “When you’re back. Please.” 

    I nod and squeeze her hand in reassurance. “Come on, not the whole world is against us.” Then, a little thought creep into my head and I grin. “And, I think I’m going to have a hard time sleeping in the jungle without thinking about last night.” 

    She whines, “Come on now. You’re going with all the prettiest actress, stop teasing me. I’m going to have to deal with some more serious teasing once I reach the set and meet the girls.”

    “They won’t know if you don’t tell them.” 

    “You know I can’t lie.” She shrugs. “Hyejin will tease me for another 3 months about this.”

I smile at that then we both stop when we remember about what would happen when I’m back. Maybe, I could sit in the plane and think of how I should break the news, I’m pretty sure Yongsun is already stressing out on her side about this too. We both will have to explain to our companies and convince them about this because really, from anyone else in this industry’s perspective, this is one brave and dumb move. Publicizing your own relationship is like you’re willingly throwing yourself into a sea of wild animals out there. It could goes really wrong or it could be quite acceptable. 

After all, it’s always calm before the storm.