"Chanyeol, just listen to me. You answer my question," Jisoo said when she managed to get hold of Chanyeol in her recess time. "Did you sleep with Xiaotong?" she then asked.

"What? No!" Chanyeol snapped, and by the way he reacted to her question, Jisoo just knew that he told her the truth. But something felt so off much more with this.

"Then why was she under the impression that you are in love with each other?" she asked again.

"Well I don't know," Chanyeol sounded utterly baffled by the question alone, he must have not expected this a lot. "I don't know why she thinks we're in love, but I can assure you that I don't have that kind of feeling. I didn't even touch her, for God's sake. Something must be wrong in that girl's head, I knew she was trouble."

Chanyeol then told her about New York. He didn't say anything about it to her because the meeting was kind of unexpected. He happened to be in Manhattan when Xiaotong suddenly gave him a call that she was in town and asked him to show her around. She said that she had this collaboration project with a fashion magazine but somehow he had the feeling that she was doing it purposely knowing his schedule from their previous phonecall. And having some time for the dinner break, Chanyeol decided to see her and took her for a walk around Times Square before he got back to Providence on the same evening.

"I never saw her again after that, and we did nothing, I swear to you." he then sighed, "Do you actually believe that I would really court her, like, for real? Jees, I thought you know me."

Jisoo shook her head, as if Chanyeol could see her doing so. "I actually don't. I thought something was wrong too, that's why I call to clarify it with you."

"But, why would she say so out of the blue? I mean, it's not like we're intensely communicating."

She scratched her neck, considering if she could tell Chanyeol about Yixing's family problem. But Yixing clearly said that he didn't want Chanyeol to be anywhere near his cousin, and to do that, and to prevent an unwanted situation in the future, Jisoo needed him to know this. She knew that she could trust him not to say anything about it to people out there, so that's how she told him the situation with Xiaotong's financial problem and everything else.

Chanyeol didn't say anything much hearing what happened, he could only scoff and said, "I can't believe it." perplexedly. And to be honest, Jisoo was extremely relieved to know that this went how she wished it to be. She knew something was off, she knew Chanyeol quite well to know that he wouldn't be just that easy to fall in love with someone. She meant it like, they even had that relationship and that it's still not enough to get him to fall for her. She didn't mean to degrade anybody, but she just knew that Xiaotong, of all people, wouldn't be Chanyeol's type.

And Jisoo was relieved, because she had no slightest idea what to say to Yixing if it happened to be the other way around. She had caused him too much trouble, and he'd had so many damn things in his hands too. Knowing that his cousin having a relationship with Chanyeol would probably make him mental. So, it's really a total wind-down for her, Yixing would be glad to hear this.

"What about you, Jees? How have you been holding up with the marriage?" Chanyeol probed her after that, which Jisoo only shrugged with the question.

"Well, it's great. I couldn't ask for more." she said.

"Really? Tell me, is he good in bed?"

Jisoo laughed. Strangely enough, she had expected him to ask this the least. She just knew that Chanyeol had this competitive side in him when it came to Yixing and everything about him, so she told him the diplomatic answer that Yixing had been great just to save his pride. But again, of course, Chanyeol couldn't just accept that.

"Oh come on, who's better? Me or him?"

"First of all, you are a great pleasure giver, Chanyeol. But to tell you the truth, Yixing doing it much better." she answered him in a very serious tone as she couldn't hold back her giggle anymore at the same. Like, it was even embarrassing to talk about their own bed issue, but now she had to share a thing about her husband, she was totally awkward. But Chanyeol started it, and Jisoo just couldn't hold back herself to not brag.

"Ouch, that hurts!" he squealed, "You know what? I think you're just saying that because he's your husband, the spousal-privilege is revoked."

And Jisoo just laughed again. She then told him about Yixing's mother's disease when he told her to update her on what's new, which he was concern about. They had a little more chat again before she ended the call for having the class to teach. She met Kyungsoo in front of the class, waiting for her while he assisted her work on the lecture.

Jisoo observed that her class seemed to be getting more crowded every week, especially since last year's incident, she had to admit that her name was getting known internally. Some students from outside the faculty came to join the lecture, and Jisoo could not object because they did not disturb the course of the class. She only realized this when she saw the number of students who attended far exceeded the list in the attendance list. When she probed some of them about this, they only said that they were interested in joining her lecture despite their different programs and Jisoo couldn't just get them out from the class with that reason alone.

She was glad that students were taking interest in her class no matter what their true intention was. She just knew some of them were there only to take a snap of her OOTD blatantly with their DSLR camera when she was walking around the lectern or leaning on the table while doing the lecture. She was surprised at first, but to hide her feeling of annoyance, she told them some jokes about keeping their camera off while she was lecturing because it just distracted her focus. She even openly revealed what she wore today, because she was totally aware that the mention of her husband was one of their main interests (She happened to wear a new Dior silk blouse that Yixing bought for her during his travel to Singapore), just to save them less time to actually exploring google to search for the reference. At least the interaction made her class was less boring with all the theories about applied ethics. She could tolerate all activities as long as it didn't degrade her as the professor in the class, though Kyungsoo didn't all agree to her leniency.

"You're too soft to them, Jisoo. The class is not a playground, they couldn't just take your picture audaciously like it was some kind of a fashion show. That's a violence against the school rule." Kyungsoo protested, "You should kick them out at the next meeting. If you feel that if you can't do it, I'll do it for you."

"You know I can't do that, don't you?" she replied to him with a sigh, as much as she agreed with him about being too audacious and she wanted to kick them out, it's just not that easy to do it in reality. "If we kick them out from the class, they will take it the wrong way. So many people misinterpreted the words that I said these days. They distort the facts and make a whole new different statement as if what I said was a disgrace when I didn't mean it that way. Let's just let them do what they want, as long as it didn't bother me that lot, I'll be just fine." 

Kyungsoo clicked his tongue. Jisoo could relate his irritation because she was just as annoyed, maybe even more disturbed than him. What's more, at times like this, Jisoo really couldn't distinguish which was really a student or a journalist posing as a student. She had reported this to the faculty, but what was spread out there was that she was trying to be exclusive knowing that she's now a public figure. She was getting tired of people saying untrue things about her, although Yixing repeatedly said not to take it to the heart, it was just not as easy as he said. People talked, and as much as she wanted to ignore them, she was just too sensitive to this kind of thing. Inevitably their words kept making her feel offended that all she did mostly was keeping silent now.

It was such a hectic and quite stressing moment and Yixing's call at lunch break was probably the best thing that happened today so far.

"Did you have lunch?" Yixing asked once she took his call at its second ring.

"No. You?"

"I didn't get the chance to. You want to grab a bite with me? I happen to be nearby, I'll be there in fifteen minutes." he proposed, and of course, she wouldn't refuse to such a proposition. After the whole commotion with the paparazzi and the uninvited students in the class this morning, having her lunch with her husband was the only thing she needed today.

While waiting for Yixing in the parking area behind her office building, Jisoo took the time to reply to the emails in her inbox. A journalist who was also an editor of a big publisher company contacted her a few days ago. He offered to work with her to create an autobiography about her life as a young educator and an inspiring individual. They had chatted with a call last weekend. The journalist outlined the concept of his writing, and Jisoo deliberately put the call on speaker so that Yixing would listen to it too. They would meet again tomorrow in her office to further discuss the concept of his book, along with plans for several interviews that he would do while he wrote the book for her.

She raised her head as a car pulled over right in front of her. When Yixing rolled down the window, he was wearing his favorite Ray-Ban Aviator, eyes behind that shades moved up and down her body, from head to toe, as if he were sizing her up. A twitch was formed at the tip of his lips as he was doing so,

"Hey, Beautiful. Wanna ride in my Maserati?" he asked in a flirty tone.

Jisoo tilted her head, trying hard to hold back her smile. Had she ever said that Yixing was also a natural-joker too? When he was in a good mood, he really loved to . Acting some roleplays just to be playful, and this was one of those moments where she automatically switched on her acting mode to play along with him. Raising her chin as to play it hard to get, she raised her hand up to show him her ring,

"Sorry to break it, but I got my boo." she said as she made a gesture with her finger to get lost.

Yixing bit on his upper lips, amused by her answer and then propped his chin on his clenched fist resting on the window, "What about I let you ride me too?" he tried again with his seductive voice, he even puckered his lips to send her a kiss in the air. And Jisoo made a thinking face, she waited about fifteen seconds until she wagged her hair and answered him,

"Okay." she walked around to get in the car from the passenger seat while Yixing burst into real laughter.

"Why is it so easy to lure you, Woman? I'm really lost at words." he said still in his amused chuckle.

"What can I say? Ain't no woman can say no for a ride offer." she chuckled for the cringing feeling to her own words while Yixing kept laughing at the mention of the the 'ride' but with the different meaning. He then leaned sideways to peck her on her lips. He indeed looked merrier today, and she was wondering what good news would she hear today to see him smiling so brightly like a baby got his own toy for the first time. Was it about his mother?

"Tell you later," he said when she asked about it, "What do you want to eat?"

"Anything would be fine. It's just, we should get something nearby because I have a class in two hours," she told him as she buckled up and leaned her back on the seat.

"Okay, your wish is my command, My Queen."

Yixing didn't waste any more time to hit the road. It took them about ten minutes to drive to this samgyetang restaurant, where Jisoo was a regular in there. They took the couch seat at the corner of the hall which was a bit secluded from the crowd. Yixing let her sit first before he took his place across the table from her. He took her hand on his, holding it firm while they were talking about their morning. 

Jisoo didn't plan to tell Yixing what happened today actually, but since he asked, it's impossible for her to just hide it. Yixing wasn't very happy to hear her story but he knew that there's nothing much he could do since it all happened in the university's jurisdiction. They both were totally aware how high was people's attention to her that they were a married couple. People in China, especially, followed their activities like it was their daily meals and commented on everything every day. There were some good comments, there were bad, and they were just unavoidable.

Yixing had been helping her struggling with the hate comments that people threw on her, called her names, they seemed to always find something to point out her weakness and made it a big deal. And every time, Yixing would sue those people with malicious words, but when Jisoo found they were just a student from this national university or an employee of a very big company, she would drop the charge. She didn't want to destroy their future even though they had recklessly written something nasty about her. And she just couldn't say no when their parents would beg for mercy, that they would take the blame instead. And Jisoo had a soft spot on parents, so she had no