“OK!”  yells out Manager Hyunkyun, as soon as the song ended.  “Let’s call it a night.  I’ll go get something for your dinner, alright?”

            “Thank you!” bows the group, as the manager walks out.

            “Sleep~” says Tao, tiredly as he quickly checks his phone.

            Exo was practicing a remix of a song on their mini album for the Dream Concert and it was already midnight.  They haven’t had a chance to eat dinner yet, but they have had snacks here and there to ease the hunger.

            “I wonder where Sooyun Jiejie is.” sighs Tao, as he fans his face and sits on the ground.

            “Who?” asks Sehun, confused.

            “Their new makeup artist.” answers Baehyun, for Tao.  “You know, the one that took a picture with D.O and Lay Hyung freaked out about it.”

            “I did not freak out.” defends Lay.  “I just had an epiphany.  That was all.”

            “Mm hm.” nods Chanyeol.

            “Where is she?” asks D.O.  “It’s been a week since you guys came back from China.  Wouldn’t she be around the company?”

            “Oh~” laughs Suho.  “Are you trying to get a new boo?”

            “It’s not-” starts D.O.

            “Hyung!” complains Kai.  “Don’t just use slang like that!  It doesn’t fit your face!”

            “What?” asks Suho, offended.

            As Kai’s teasing starts, Lu Han turns his attention back to Tao.  Chen is now standing by his side.  The both of them are frantically checking their phones.  Then, at the corner of his eyes he can see Xiumin, Kris, and Lay quickly checking theirs as well.

            “I don’t understand.” Lu Han can hear Tao say, softly.  “I texted her 4 days ago and she didn’t respond.  I hope nothing bad happened.”

            “Same here!  She’s pretty good at replying back when she receives one.” says Chen, as he lets out a heavy sigh. 

            There was a sudden knock at the door, the guys turned towards it, and in comes in Sung Sooyun.  She is holding 2 bags of Styrofoam boxes and the guys automatically knew that it is their dinner.  Lu Han glances over at Chen and Tao and they were hesitating to help her.  Then, he looks back at the makeup artist.  Kris is already helping her out by taking one of the bags.  The leader quickly hands the bag to Kai and tells him to hand the boxes out to the others.  Before Lu Han turns toward Kai, he catches Sooyun’s small smile as she grabs Kris’ attention.  He returns her smile with a bright, broad grin.

            Lu Han got his Styrofoam container from Kai and holds onto it.  Although he doesn’t mean to constantly stare at her, he watches as Suho politely gives her a formal bow.  He quickly introduces himself and Sooyun does the same in return.  Suho smiles the same smile Kris was smiling as he says something to her.  She replies, rather softly.  The Korean leader’s smile broadened and he turns to say something Kris.  Sooyun takes her chance, turns to Chen who is now next to her, and pulls him close to her.  She whispers something into his ear and then he pulls away with knotted brows.  He nods his head and said something.  From Lu Han’s weak lip reading, it seems like Chen said, “Yeah”, but he isn’t completely sure.

            “Lu Han Hyung.” calls out Sehun.  He quickly turns toward the younger male, without hesitation, and walks towards him.  He smiles at Sehun as he takes the spot next to him as the guys start to form a circle.

            “You got us ice cream too?” asks Tao, excited.

            “Of course.” replies Sooyun, as she continues to stand up.  All the guys were sitting down and is starting to eat their dinner.  “The ice cream pops are in the freezer in the longue.”

            Tao smiles, brightly.  “Noona, you’re the best.” he comments.

            “I thought that Manager Hyunkyun was going to be getting us dinner instead.” comments Chanyeol, as he eats a spoonful of rice. 

            “I think he went on a date.” replies Sooyun, bluntly and flatly with a straight face.

            “What?!” asks EXO K, as EXO M starts to choke.

            Kris bursts out laughing.  “I love how you said it, Sooyun.” he comments.  Then, he mimics her tone and facial expression.  “I think he went on a date.”

            “Noona, why don’t you sit down?” asks Tao, as he pulls on the long sleeve she is wearing.  Before Sooyun can say anything, Chen pulls on her wrist and making her sit next to him and Tao.  “Where have you been for the last 4 days?”  The question quickly makes the 4 other EXO M member start to question her as well.  The scene becomes chaotic as EXO K blankly stares at their band mates.

            “Where were you?” asks Xiumin, quickly with a fatherly voice.

            “I know!  I texted you 6 billion texts already!  Why didn’t you respond?” bombards Chen.  “I even used Kris’ phone to call you too, in case you were trying to ignore me or something!”

            “Why didn’t you bother to respond to your texts and missed calls?” asks Kris and Lay, in perfect unison.

            Then all the sudden, the guys turn to glance at Lu Han.  They were waiting for him to say something.  From their looks, he knows that if he doesn’t say anything then he’ll get in trouble once she leaves.  He swallows down the food he was chewing on with a loud gulp. 

            “U-Uh.” starts Lu Han, as he grabs Sooyun’s attention from across the circle.  “We missed you.”  Xiumin, Lay, and Kris flashes him looks of disapproval and softly shakes their heads.  “We were really worried about you.”

            As soon as he finishes his sentence, Sooyun flashes him a disgusted look throwing him off.  “What?” he mouths, as she looks away from him.  He can hear Sehun snickering at his side as he turns to the guy and lightly punches him on the shoulder.

            “How you said it was so dry.” softly smiles the younger male.  “So emotionless.  But, I like it.  I didn’t know you have dry sarcasm.”

            “I had 2 photo shoots to do these last few days.” Lu Han hears Sooyun explain.  He turns to look at her.  She is leaning over to take a good look at Kris.  “One for Vogue Girl with Lee Minho and No Minwoo and the other one for a 10 page fashion spread for W magazine.  The fashion spread took about 24 hours straight to shoot, OK?  I barely woke up 2 hours ago.”

            Chen lets out a long sigh, as he catches her attention.  “I’m just glad you’re OK.” he smiles.

            She turns the same small, lifeless smile she likes to wear.  “It’s OK.” she says.  “I’m doing fine.”

            For a moment, Lu Han wonders how the guys will react to her bright smile and the melodious laugh he heard…  Then, he wonders how she was the morning after their strange interaction they had and how much she probably cried.  He quickly pulls his mind out of his thoughts as he hears Baekhyun asking her if she was born in 1992.

            “I seriously thought that maybe Sooyun Jiejie killed herself.” admits Tao, bluntly. 

            His assumption rapidly makes Lu Han’s cheeks blush with guilt.  He was thinking the same thing, as Manager Lee is driving EXO M home.  The only one that isn’t there was Chen.  He had asked one of their other managers to take him to Sooyun’s place since it would be too scandalous to be riding in the same car.  When the group about what it was, he just shrugged his shoulders and replied ‘It’s obviously about something.’  How will he get home?  A taxi, of course.  He plans on staying at his parent’s place for the night to avoid running into fans in the middle of the night.

            “What the hell, Tao?!!” screamed the 4 other EXO M members.  Lu Han blinks his eyes slowly, as he just listens to what the others have to say.

            “Look, Tao.  Just because she seemed rather depressed staying with us in China does not mean that she’ll commit suicide.” comments Xiumin.

            “Yeah, she seems pretty head strong.  If she was going to do that, she would have done that a long time ago.” adds Kris.  “She would have killed herself within a year after Shin’s death.  There’s no way she would do it now.”

            “Exactly.” chimes in Lay.  “I’ve never heard her call Lu Han ‘Shin’ before?”  Lay turns to him.  “Right, Lu Han?”

            “She’s never said it so I think she’s over him.” lies Lu Han.  He feels like he was lying to his group just to keep them off his back for what had happened between him and Sooyun, as if they all knew.  Even Lay hasn’t known what had occurred yet and it probably won’t know until Lu Han feels like it’s time, which can be years from now.

            The 4 guys continue on with their conversation as Lu Han’s mind starts to wonder.  It was only a few minutes ago and yet it felt like it was surreal.  Sooyun was handing some of the members’ fangiven gifts that fans outside the SM building had.  She mumbled something about understanding the life of fangirls and feeling sympathetic towards the lifestyle that they had thrown themselves into.

            There were gifts for Kai, Kris, him, and 2 for Xiumin.  She handed out the gifts to the others and him last.  She glanced down at the shirt he was wearing, confused him.  He looked down as well.  He was surprised with what he is wearing.  It is the shirt she had accidentally given him years ago.  The shirt that was meant for Shin, but she had given it to him instead.

            She flashed her usual small smile.  ‘You like that shirt?’ she asked.

            ‘U-Uh, yeah.’ smiled Lu Han, without a second thought.  When he realized that, a blush crept over his face.

            ‘It suits you well.’ she commented.  She was still smiling her typical smile, but there was something about her eyes that made him know that it was genuine this time around.  And with that, she just turned away from him and didn’t glance back. 

            Lu Han hopes that no one saw it so then no one would suspect anything.  He rather people see that they are awkward around each other than for them to think that they have an ounce of relationship going on.  He’d rather have everyone believing that he has completely forgotten than to have them know that he is actually afraid of her, afraid of her presence in his life would bring.

            “I wonder why Jongdae Ge is going over to her place.” commented Tao, grabbing Lu Han’s attention. 

            “I don’t know.” shrugs Kris.

            “Do you guys think that he’s dating her?” asks Manager Lee, curiously.

            Maybe, answers Lu Han, silently.  It’s possible.  Out of all of the relationships Sooyun have with EXO M, her friendship with Chen is the closest.

            Xiumin shrugs beside him.  “It’s possible.” replies the bun.  “They are pretty close since they’re born in the same year and have similar interests with movies and other things.”

            Manager Lee shrugs.  “That is possible, but I actually expect her to make a move on Lu Han instead.” he admits.

            “Lu Han?” questions Lay.

            “Me?” he retorts.

            “Why?” asks Kris.  “Because Moon Shin and him look alike?”

            “Of course!” replies Manager Lee.  “That’s why Hyunkyun and I were fighting against the Director to not let him place her with you guys.  Having her as your makeup artist is asking for a scandal, but he didn’t care because Hyoyeon was done with her promotions.  The director didn’t want to put her possible marketing on YouTube to waste since the company is paying her so much and he wasn’t planning on just placing her with the rookie group.  He wanted to place her with an older, more precise, and experienced group, so that’s why he just threw her with your group to help market you guys to possible international fans.”

            Lu Han’s face scrunches up.  He knew that she is quite famous that video hosting site, but he didn’t know that she has that much power with their international marketing.  As far as he is aware, she had placed at least a picture up of the artists, actresses, and models she worked with on her blog, but not videos on her channel.  The star that has bombarded her videos was Hyoyeon.  He just thought that SM allowed her to do that, but not actually expect her to do so.

            “What are her plans for us then?”

            “Yeah, how is possible for her to upload videos or pictures of us when she can’t even access YouTube in China?”

            “There’s no way she can just upload once every 3 months.  That isn’t consistent enough.”

            “As far as Hyunkyun and I are aware,” starts Manager Lee.  “SM is still in discussion on what to do.  It seems they know that they got themselves in deep because they don’t exactly want to reveal the fact that Moon Shin’s ex-fiancée is your makeup artist.  Even though it’s been 4 years, netizens know that she hasn’t exactly moved on and that makes her a scandal magnet for Lu Han, even if we all know how awkward they are with each other.  In addition, the so called YouTube marketing might not even go as they had originally planned because of that.  If they move her out too soon from her current position, then she’ll surely raise hell on them.”

            “Are you telling us that she’s really is demanding?” asks Tao, surprised.

            “She doesn’t look like the type does she?” replies Manager Lee, with a snort.  “I wouldn’t say that she’s demanding.  She knows that the company just really wants to use her because of her 1 million subscribers on YouTube and she just wants to get paid accordingly to her behind the scenes marketing and what she is supposed to do.  She doesn’t act stuck up or anything, considering all the famous Hollywood stars she’s met and worked for.”

            “She’s really humble.” adds Lay, randomly.

            “She is.” nods Manager Lee.  “But, if she really wanted to, she could request to change into another group and I’m sure the Director wouldn’t mind.”

            “Are you saying that she has a motive to stay with EXO M?” asks Lu Han, with a dry throat.

            “Yes.” nods Manager Lee, as the car comes to a stop.  “And, I think that it’s you.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

            OMG.  This was longer than expected………  There’s more to “this” chapter, but because it was getting so long, I had to split it up into 2 separate chapters.  Regardless, I hope you all enjoyed!

            Thank you for being so patient with me!!  ^^  Makes me want to give you all cookies, cupcakes, and Layincorns!!  And, sorry if the wording is weird.  I’m so tired right now.  >_<

LOVE,

loveFORyunho