Above the Clouds

Chen's POV:

"WE ARE ONE!"

A roar of cheers and applause ensued, as we started to head out of the set of Happy Camp.

Another day means another struggle to twist my mouth around the difficult Mandarin words that I've been painstakingly trying to learn these last few months.

Yet another thing to add to my list of insecurities.

I'm not nearly as pretty as Luhan, squishy as Xiu Min, tall as Kris, cute as Tao, and funny as Lay. I'm just the guy that sings in the back and can't even converse with my own fans.

Oh well, I'll just study even harder.

We boarded our van and whisked off to our hotel to pack our bags and fly back to Korea.

Luckily, we won't have any more schedules for a few more weeks. Now, I can go home and spend some quality time with my family.

Before I knew it, we were already boarding our plane and finding our designated seats. This time around, I'm going to be sitting with Xiu Min.

We buckled our seat-belts and I found myself slowly dozing off.

Not long after I fell asleep, I felt a slight nudge. I lazily opened my eyes, to find a flight attendant gaily chattering away with Xiu Min in Mandarin.

He turned to me,"Hey, do you want anything to drink? She didn't want to leave before getting you some refreshments too."

He actually understood all of that Mandarin? I asked for a lemonade, and sighed for the nth time that day.

When will I be able to improve like Xiu Min?

I even have to be translated a question regarding drinks by a fellow KOREAN member.

Instead of going back to sleep, I opted to gaze outside of the window and drown in my depressing thoughts.

If I want to gain any fans in China, I'm going to have to up my game and study harder.

Nothing seems to work though. Flash cards only help me learn basic vocab, but they're not exactly words that are used often in China. You see, all of the Mandarin textbooks teach extremely formal Mandarin. It makes me sound like I'm talking to my ancestors.

Trying to learn from my fellow Chinese members can only get me so far. Tao can barely understand my own Korean, Kris and Luhan would rather sleep (not together mind you), and Lay is always off in La La Land.

Wallowing in my self-defeat, I hadn't realized that our plane landed until Luhan grabbed my arm and Tao was unbuckling my seat belt for me.

"What are you guys doing?", I grumbled. I didn't mean to sound so hostile, but I'm not exactly in the mood to be full of rainbows and sunshine.

Luhan defensively held up his two hands and pouted,"No need to get -hurt, man. You just wouldn't get out of your seat."

I gave a brief nod, and placed my carry-on bag on my shoulder.

I'll apologize later. Right now, I just want to be alone.

I put on my "hipster" glasses that adorned my face so well. I don't really see why the fans are always making fun of it?

Anyways, as we made our way to our black van, a fan gave me a handwritten letter. I thanked her in Korean since we were in Korea after all, but she didn't seem to understand.

I looked down at the envelope and deciphered the neat hand-writing to be Chinese.

"Umm... 谢谢!"

With that I walked away from the squealing fan.

Her squeals boosted my self-esteem a bit, and I decided that I was going to apologize to Tao and Luhan tonight after all.

A/N: Thank you for reading chapter 2! This was just a quick intro to Chen~ sorry if he seemed depressed. He'll definitely be his cute happy self again as the story moves on. Just in case some of you didn't know, 谢谢 means "thank you". Please subscribe and comment!❤