By the time I turned my phone back on, there were several text messages that came in, a couple of missed calls, too. Some from Yixing, some from Minseok as well. A good ten seconds after, Luhan called.

“Tao?” Luhan’s voice went like a whole step of a note higher in pitch.

I know they’re worried that I didn’t answer their messages and calls. I’d get mad at myself too actually. But I’m pretty sure I’m fine and not hurt… physically, that is.

“Ayo, wassup?” trying to sound nonchalant.

“Where the hell are you? Manager-hyung is fuming. We’re going to leave for the airport now.”

“Hold your horses, will you? Geez. I’m here at the lobby.” I puffed out my breath.

“Well, how about your luggage here? You packed everything already?” I could hear trolleys being pulled.

“Everything’s all packed up and ready. My luggage is the blue one. Would it be all right if you guys bring it down for me? I’ll be here waiting.” I sat at the couch of the receiving lobby, oh so comfortably.

“Sure, sure. By the way, is Kris with you? He asked us to bring along his luggage as well.”

And after I heard a semi-soft shout of Yixing, get the blue bag, I answered back with a negative and a slight scoff and finally ended the call.

I am in a roller coaster of emotions right now, but one thing is certain – I don’t feel like talking to Kris gege at the moment. Not when I saw everything. But I do want to talk to someone to sort out my feelings.

During the van ride to the airport, Kris tried to talk with me, picking the seat right next to me.

“Tao, may we talk?” he nudged my side.

I was purposefully not looking at him. “I’m tired, gege. I want to sleep.” I pulled out my headphones, put them on and mimicked sleeping.

“Why weren’t you answering your phone? You got me worried.” I felt him shift in his seat.

“Sorry ‘bout that.” I heaved a long sigh and tried to be comfortable.

“You weren’t able to meet Vanessa-”

Shut up! Please, just SHUT UP!

“Gege, not now… please.” I don’t want to hear a replay of what I saw. I don’t want to act like I feel sorry for them. I just turned the volume to maximum and escaped to dreamland.

When we arrived at the airport, I immediately asked our manager if he could make Luhan and I sit together on the plane ride home. I felt like I want to talk with someone right now, and I think Luhan is the right person to converse with. He can help me sort out my thoughts, I hope. But I don’t really need someone to sort out my emotions. All I want right now is a listening ear, just someone who can withhold judgement, nod occasionally, tell me everything’s okay, that what I’m feeling is perfectly normal.

I know I’m being immature by ignoring Kris right now, but I need space. If he doesn’t get that, then fine. I don’t care.

They were holding hands. They were intertwined. And how Kris looked at her with endearment, like the only thing left for him to do, but he wasn’t able to, was kiss her. But somehow, Kris was stopping himself. It seemed like the rational side of him was telling him that it will be a bad idea and it’s not gonna help them both.

-o-

Luhan and I sat together during the plane ride. I opened up to him that I wanted to talk about something important. Luhan has this air of confidentiality in him. Like you’re assured he’s going to listen and understand whatever it is you’re going to tell him.

“So what’s bothering the romantic panda?” Luhan gege just finished buckling his seatbelt and is now facing me with that aegyo smile of his.

“It’s Kris gege.” I answered back timidly.

“Kris?” I saw an eyebrow raised, “Why? What happened?”

“It’s… well…” was it really about Kris and what I saw earlier? Or am I more bothered about myself and my personal emotions? “Um, I think… Scratch back what I said. I think I’m having problems with my feelings…?” my sentence ended with a hesitant rise in intonation.

“Like what? Identity crisis or puppy love?”

“Is it possible to be experiencing both at the same time?” I felt my eyes grew wide. Am I really experiencing both at the same time? Jesus Christ. Maybe I do need therapy.

“Tao, I’m not a shrink, so I don’t really know.” he tapped my knee, and the flight stewardess announced take off.

“But what is bothering you?” he continued.

“I’m having problems with my feelings towards Kris gege…?” again the last part of the sentence went notes higher in pitch.

“Oh, ‘kay…?” came Luhan’s answer. “And how is that a problem again?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

This time I saw Luhan raised an eyebrow at me. “Look, if you’re not gonna talk it out straight with me then I cannot help you with whatever it is that’s troubling you. I cannot read minds, Tao.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry, gege. It’s just that, it’s complicated.”

“We got time. 13 hours to be exact.” He looked at me with a serious expression, no more aegyo smile this time.

I was staring at the head rest in front of me. “Gege, I think I like Kris gege.” I waited for his reaction.

“Cool. I know that.” He answered back with a shrug of his shoulders, like he’s already expecting me to tell him that.

Okay, that was not the kind of reaction that I was expecting. “What do you mean you know?”

“You guys look… how do I say this… cute together. Sorry for the lack of an even more apropos term, but you do.” Luhan was smiling like some fan boy. “And you know Yixing and I support you guys, right?” He gave me a thumbs up.

“I don’t think you understand me here.” I couldn’t help but smile at his reaction. “I mean, like really like him… beyond friendship.”

“Oh… Oh! You mean like that. Uh-huh…” and now I got him thinking.

“You think it’s normal?” I looked at him in the eye. I need to know his point of view. I wanted to hear someone tell me that whatever it is that I’m feeling is completely normal and there’s seriously nothing wrong with it.

“To be honest, Tao… I don’t know.” He was looking down at his lap, like he’s ashamed he couldn’t answer my question any further.

“But…” I shoved him in the shoulder. “How come you don’t know? You got HunHan.”

And suddenly he laughed. “So we’re going to talk about that, huh?” he ruffled my hair with his hand. “Sehun is… Well, he’s someone very important to me, and you guys know that. He’s someone I care about, a lot.”

“Kris gege is someone very important to me, too.” I butted in.

“Well, you see right there. It’s like that for me and Sehun as well.” He was smiling yet with eyes staring at his hands on his lap.

“You’re confusing me, gege.” This time I was the one to raise an eyebrow.

He released a quick laugh. “I’m confused myself, too.” He looked at me and smiled.

For a moment, we were both silent. I didn’t want to be the one to speak up first so I waited for him to sort out his thoughts.

“But, as for you and Kris… You do know he cares about you, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” I don’t know where Luhan is leading with this but I’ll ride along.

“Good then, because he does. He really does care for you. He may not show it but beneath that high and mighty exterior of his, he looks out for you..” And I got another smile from him again. “Well, of course he cares for the other members, too, but with you it’s kinda different. Like how he reaches out to you during concerts, and how he is patient enough towards you and the things you do.”

“Hey, what does that mean anyway?”

“C’mon, Tao. You do have these tantrum fits at times, but we don’t really mind. And Kris is just there every single time, don’t you recognize that?”

“I never thought of that actually.” I never did try to think past Kris gege’s actions towards me. I just think it’s something a leader should do to s.

“And, honestly,” he continued, “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with liking him, or liking someone in general whether or not he’s a boy or a girl.”

I held my breath. “You really think so, gege?” there’s this small tinge of hope building up inside me.

“Yeah. Apart from the fact that the fans won’t really mind,” he laughed all of a sudden. “I seriously think there’s nothing wrong.” He was nodded his head and reclined his seat just a bit.

“But… it’s not accepted, I think. I mean, we were taught the Korean culture during our trainee days and the Korean society isn’t that accepting towards… you know.” I do hope no one is listening to our conversation right now, especially our manager. That would be really awkward to explain to him how we end up talking about… you know.

“It’s funny right?”

“What’s funny?” I looked at him and he was playing with his seatbelt, his head down.

“There’s this widespread homophobia in the Korean society but they support same-gender shipping. It’s very contradicting.”

I didn’t know what to answer to that. I didn’t even realize that not until he mentioned it two seconds ago.

He reclined his seat even lower, getting ready to sleep.

“But my point here is…” he looked at me at tapped my arm. “Do what you want with who you want. Do you understand?”

Not… really. “Um, do explain.”

He shifted in his seat to face me. “I believe that if you find someone who you’re attracted to, you should go talk to him or her. If you think he or she is hot and you want to make friends with them, then no one should stop you from making a new friend. Am I right? Making new friends is not against the law.”

I was nodding while he was explaining. His logic is sound after all.

“And if you do fall in love with someone, then you have all the right to, regardless of the person’s gender. Because in the long run, we don’t really fall in love with how a person looks like. We get attracted by how one looks, yes… but it’s the personality of the person that makes us stay.”

I slowly looked at Kris. He was lying in his seat, too, with his earphones on.

“We fall in love with the person, Tao, not the gender.”

I agree. I was still nodding my head. I was just nodding my head because I don’t even know what to say after everything I heard from him. Luhan gege’s right with everything he said.

“I shouldn’t be scared with what I’m feeling, right, gege?” I looked back at Luhan.

“Yeah. It’s all right to feel awkward at first.” He let out a yawn. “It’s nice if you guys can talk about it, you know. That’s what Sehun and I did. It totally helped.”

“So I should talk with Kris gege then?”

“I’m not telling you that you should talk now, you can do that later. The guy needs his rest, and you need rest as well.” And another yawn escaped him.

We are tired from the week’s activities. I’ll give myself a break then. However, there’s this question I wanted to ask for quite some time. I didn’t want to get my hopes up but here goes. “But what if he feels the same way I do?”

Luhan stayed silent, his eyes staring just straight forward. He’s taking some time to answer back like he was seriously thinking his words through. I don’t mind if he’s going to be honest to me, thoug.

He then smiled. “Cross the bridge when you get there, aight? You wouldn’t really know unless you take the step.”

“So… you don’t really mind if things go beyond friendship and stuff between…”

“Nah, it’s your deal. The other members and I can have our say but it will still all boil down to the both of you.” He pushed a button to ask for a pillow. “As for our manager…”

“He’ll get mad?”

“I’m not sure. But he might tell the company. No, scratch that. He will tell the company, no doubt about that.”

“What’s the worst that can happen?” It’s not that I’m asking for worst case scenarios, but it’s always good to prepare.

“I dunno. Group disbandment, maybe.”

My eyes grew wide. I am not prepared for that.

“Look, Tao, don’t listen to me.” He must have seen how my eyes grew wide like saucers. He immediately sat up. “You asked for the worst so I answered the first thing that came to my mind. Jesus Christ. Don’t you dare cry in front of me right now.”

I was having tachycardia. I seriously do not want the group to disband because of me and my selfish wants. I will keep my feelings a secret if it can assure me that the group stays intact.

“Tao…” Luhan tried to calm me down. I must be staying still ‘cause Luhan sure is panicking right now. “Look, I’m not scaring you. I shouldn’t have said what I said. It’s just that, we have our image to think about and there’s still the Korean culture and-“

“No.” I interrupted him. “I want to believe what you told me, gege. I want to be able to… I just want to believe you.”

“Oh, okay.”

“What you said was right, gege.” I heaved out a sigh.

“I’m glad you think that way then. And I’m glad you stopped the waterworks ‘cause Kris is going to kill me.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that one. “And gege… Screw the Korean culture and it’s contradictions. We’re not Koreans. We’re Chinese.” This time I was the one to smile at him, with aegyo, too. 

~o~o~o~

Okay, sooo... I got this friend of mine, who I share my Exo fangirl feels with, and she shared to me that Kris actually had a girlfriend when he was still in Canada. I seriously did not know that. Promise.

When I told her that I wasn't aware of that before I wrote this story, she was like, "Are you even serious? I thought you knew that's why you have this plot with Vanessa!"

I'm honest. I did not know.

I ain't gonna paste the picture here coz I don't want my story to be taken down. The pic was circulated in Tumblr first, I think. I'm not sure. But the user of the Tumblr account took down the post with the pic. I'm guesiing someone told him to take it down. And we have a secret Exo spazz group in the Philippines that only the members can see the post so the posts there are pretty safe, I hope.

You can search the picture up on Google, so don't fret. I just don't want her picture to be on my story. I don't want an SMent staff emailing me to take down my story just because of the picture. Google = friend.

Anyways... I swear to Kpop god I haven't seen the picture before I wrote this story. And guess what... The girl's got brownish hair with curls.

I wrote this description of Vanessa in chapter 7:

"light brown hair with soft waves ending just below her shoulders and framing her face just right".

And the one who shared the pic also added that the girl is kind and warm-hearted in person.

In chapter 6 of my story:

"What made you like her?” Luhan sat up straight on the bed. And everyone went silent. I guess everybody was curious about that.

Kris still had that sweet smile on his face. He’s enjoying this conversation. He likes reminiscing Vanessa. I don’t blame him, she was his girlfriend before. “She’s a kind and warm-hearted person;"

Haha! This is actually pretty cool that the girl I made up in my head has similarities with Kris' so called ex.

And here's another one...

In chapter 7, I wrote:

"“What’s up with you?” Yixing gege tapped me on my shoulder. I leaned on one leg and shrugged.

“I wanted to have coffee, but since you’re here I guess my date with coffee will have to wait.” I gave him a sweet smile that only a maknae can give."

Then I watched this interview of theirs: http://youtu.be/8-ngQE81kgM

Skip to 07:20. They were asked to share what they'll do if ever they'll have a day off. And Tao answered he would buy coffee from a cafe and go to his favorite beach in China.

Haha! I love the coincidences.

And earlier I saw this:

Ain't it sweet how Tao and Luhan are so close in real life? =)

I don't know the real story about the picture, so don't ask me. Some fans dished out Tao bumped his head, but I think he just had jet lag. They just arrived from Kcon, and Korea and the States have a different timezone so jet lag is possible.

Thanks for reading and commenting! <3