Thanks to the fact that Luhan had dumped me into a horrific designer brand ensemble that he had threatened me with his oh-so-daunting glare to get, I couldn’t even swim to salvation. Maybe the experience would be more enjoyable if we were actually in a nice lake, actually rowing properly and actually in love. None of the above applied for us. Thank goodness Eunji had the sense to scoop out Chen’s idiotic rubber duckies with a net fixed haphazardly on the end of a broom she found god knows where. Now we just had five more hours to go of Chen yelling at us in his stupid French accent and equally stupid positions he was trying to get us in.

“Gee, grow a little less hair,” Kris grumbled, trying to flick strands of my chocolate brown nest away from his eyes. “I simply cannot see.” I sighed, my head resting against his shoulder awkwardly.

“Ask Mother Nature to help me,” I hissed back in reply. “And as a girl would know, Mother Nature isn’t too lenient, especially when bringing us our monthly gift.”

“TMI,” Kris groaned, making a gagging sound. Rolling my eyes, I shifted on his lap uncomfortably. His arms were wrapped tight around my torso partially out of fear that we were going to fall straight out of the canoe.

“Blue cheeses!” he yelped. “Why is your so goddamn bony?”

“Shut up, Kristina,” I huffed in reply. “I swear you complain more than a girl.”

“Says the girl who used to dig trenches in the school oval with her bare hands,” he replied with a smug expression painted all over his face. “You have no femininity in you whatsoever. I think I’ve only seen you once in a skirt and that wasn’t even technically a skirt since it was a fluffy pink ballet tutu-“

“KRIS ING WU DON’T YOU DARE BRING UP MY BALLET DAYS,” I screeched, nudging him hard in the ribs. He responded with a muffled ‘oof’ sound and retaliated with a quick slap to my head. Over on the sidelines, Xiumin frowned and reached for his megaphone. The guy sure liked the sound of his own voice. We were only twenty metres apart, we could hear him perfectly clearly.

“CAN YOU GUYS LOOK A LITTLE MORE CHUMMY?” he hollered. “LIKE HUG OR KISS OR SOMETHING. MINHEE YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE GOING TO BE POKED UP THE BY A POKER STICK ANY SECOND NOW.”

“Okay, you guys can relax for a bit, I need to see how the pictures are coming out,” Chen commanded with a little flourish of his right hand. I didn’t know if my eyes were kidding me or not but he had now pasted a dodgy curly moustache over his upper lip. Honestly, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that body of hair looked like a shrivelled rat. His frown deepened as he flicked through each picture, his expression getting so ugly at one point I feared for my life for one agonising second.

“Hmm, let’s see,” Lay said, trying to soothe an unhappy Chen whose obvious lack of photography skills had let him down. “Okay no, not this one, Kris you’re baring your teeth like a wannabe Edward Cullen and um Minhee you sure do have a lot of pictures were you’re blinking. Oh wow…. You guys sure aren’t the most photogenic.”

“You’re stating the obvious,” Eunji scoffed, earning a wounded look from the Canadian giant sprawled out next to me. She cackled and rubbed her fingers together, shoving Chen out of her way almost ruthlessly. “My turn.”

“Okay does she look like a maniac or what?” Kris asked with wide eyes.

“That’s my best friend for you,” I sighed in resignation.

“She’s certainly going to be an interesting mother,” he noted.

“I bet,” I conceded with a slight nod.

“Do you have a good feeling about this because I don’t,” he said, his dry lips with a flick of his tongue. The sight made me strangely flustered. Clearing my throat, I turned away.

“You put together EXO-M and my best friend who is a wannabe mafia boss and then get them high on candy, you really think that’s a good combination?”

“Well at least we know that we have them on our side if we ever go to war,” he remarked dryly. “They’d sure cause a lot of damage.”

“Who needs nuclear bombs when we have these idiots around?” I chuckled.

“Oh but Lay is sane.”

“Yes, yes he is but then again he has that weird obsession with unicorns.”

Kris gasped. “But unicorns are cool!”

I groaned and slapped my forehead with my palm. “How old are you again? Five?”

He was just about he make a retort when Eunji told us to shut up, quite gleefully I must add and started showing us pictures of what kind of positions she wanted to get us in.

“That’s basically soft core ,” Kris yelled in a mixture of shock and disgust.

“That’s the point,” she replied cheerfully, clapping her hands together.

“Hey do you think if we got some pot plants in the frame it would look more realistic?” Tao asked, blinking up at Luhan with innocent panda eyes.

“Um we’re indoors with in a stupid canoe,” I huffed grumpily. “How realistic do you think this is going to turn out?”

“No worries,” Xiumin replied nonchalantly. “Apparently Chen is quite the whizz with photoshop.”

Yepp, we were doomed.

Fifteen minutes later, Kris and I were really struggling to keep our arms off each other and contorting into the strange (okay they weren’t even strange, they were straight up ual) positions Eunji had provided us. 

“If you capsize us,” I whispered into his neck. “I will pluck out your nose hairs one by one with tweezers.”

“If you capsize us,” he retaliated with an obnoxious grin. “I’ll make sure that you never-“

“Shut up, the two of you,” Eunji barked. “And try to look alluring.”

I grumbled foully under my breath and flicked my hair out of my face, trying very hard to look straight at the camera lens without laughing. Kris and I were laying on the bottom of the boat, his arms around my waist so to say it was uncomfortable was a huge understatement. Our close proximity made me squirm every time his hot breath brushed over the crook of my neck. Shuddering at the thought, I laid my head against his chest and tried to relax.

“They’re kind of decent,” she announced. “The two of you can get up now.”

“Finally!” I rejoiced only to plummet back down to reality a second later.

Where were our oars?

How were we going to get back to the edge of the pool?

In the ruckus of the entire gruelling photo shoot, Kris and I had managed to send our oars floating to the far end of the pool. Thank the heavens I could swim but I was told specifically not to get the damn outfit wet.

“, we’re screwed,” Kris muttered.

“You think?” I snapped back, rolling my eyes at his obvious remark. 

"I swear the most unfortunate things happen to you," he said with a smug smile. "Especially when I'm around. Maybe it's because you can't bear the thought of losing this fabulous face?" He gestured at his face that had been smothered in expensive BB cream and eyeliner. 

And that's when I decided to dunk him head first into the pool. 

A/N:

So… GREAT NEWS CRACK IS NOW AN OFFICIAL TAG ON THIS STORY :D And I’m two upvotes away from 150, so that’s something to celebrate too! Looking back now, there were so many times that I wanted to stop this fic but I’m so glad I didn’t because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to read all your hilarious comments. As part of celebrations, I will be replying to comments like freaking crazy. Hope you enjoyed this chapter!