We were supposed to have breakfast at the poolside cafe the next morning, an open air area that was designed as it had been named. The tables were all made of thick wood, polished and pristine with not a drop of grime to mar its surface. The pool was a large expanse of water that stretched from the cafe, rounding into a circle to accommodate a small, man-made island complete with a water slide, and ending at the edge of the Jacuzzi. Given our already packed itinerary, we weren’t supposed to go in there, but I knew some of the boys were planning on sneaking a dip when the teachers weren’t looking.

“Yixing!” I forcefully tugged the boy I had finally managed to corner behind a stack of glasses, ignoring the involuntary flow of profanities that escaped his lips. I wasn’t able to keep my grip on him for so long though; Yixing was evidently well-muscled.

“Hey!” he argued once we were safe (somewhat) behind barrier of stacked glass. “What the hell, Aeri?”

“Yixing I beg you, please help me!” I gasped, clasping my hands in front of my face and pulling out my best puppy eyes that I mimicked from my dear best friend, Lee Hyunji. “Get me out of here without both of them seeing.”

“For goodness sake, Aeri, both of them who?” Yixing said with an exasperated roll of his eyes.

“Joonmyun and Jongin.”

For a moment, Yixing gawked at me, but then, he managed to regain his composure and eyed me underneath his soft brown bangs. “Why?”

“I have my reasons,” I said curtly, before plastering on a smile. “Please Yixing.”

“No. Not unless you tell me what’s going on.” He crossed his arms across his chest, defiant and unmoving.

I finally resorted to a tactic that I knew was cruel, but forgivable given my desperation. “If you don’t help me now, I won’t tell you where Hyunji is,” I said threateningly.

I could literally see the vein in his temple beginning to throb. “What about Hyunji?” His voice sounded strained, taut.

I smiled sweetly at him. “I just happen to know that Jonghyun went one step ahead of you this morning by actually appearing at our door to pick her up. I’m not quite so sure about the details though...” I said, drawing the end of my sentence as I gleefully watched his eyes begin to blaze.

“Where are they?” he said, trying to maintain some measure of control over his temper.

“You’re going to need to make a bargain to get the answer to that,” I said smugly.

Yixing scowled, demonstrating his fluency in the more profane words of the Chinese vocabulary before he unfolded his arms and glared at me. “Fine.”

“I saw them sneak into the garden about half an hour ago.”

Yixing made a show of rolling his eyes and scoffing, uncrossing his arms to let them hang loose by his side before crossing them again. He then rested both of his hands on his hips, his eyes a play of different emotions as they swept the floor before landing on my face. Finally, he sighed and began looking around. Grabbing my wrist, he towed me towards a secluded corner hidden behind a bush of palm trees and pushed me, propelling me into the direction of a stunned Kris.

“I need your help. She doesn’t want to see either Joonmyun or Jongin, so can you keep her away from them?”

My jaw dropped. “Zhang Yixing, what are you doing?!” I hissed at him viciously.

“I’m counting on you, man,” Yixing said, giving Kris a quick pat on the back before retreating as fast as he could.

“You little –” I groaned and buried my face into my hands. Didn’t he ever think? How on earth could he have come up with the idea of delegating his duties to Kris? The guy was Joonmyun’s best friend for goodness sake, how the hell was he going to keep me away from him?!

“Are you alright?” Kris asked, tentatively touching my shoulder after a minute or so watching me torture myself in agony.

I looked up, about to apologise, before I spotted a familiar dark head making his way towards our corner. Without thinking, I grabbed Kris’s arm and ducked behind him, relying on his tall physique and muscular build to shield me. I buried my head into my palms again, hoping to make myself invisible.

“Have you seen Aeri?” Jongin asked, the steady sound of footsteps marking his approach.

For a moment, Kris didn’t answer, and I was half prepared to step out and save myself from the embarrassment when he did something really unexpected.

“Yixing said she’s not feeling too well, so she’s not coming down.”

I almost hugged him then and there for being so gallant.

“Oh. Okay then. Thanks.” Jongin’s footsteps receded, and I leaned against the wall to let out a sigh of relief.

“Was that an okay enough excuse?” Kris asked, turning to me with raised brows.

“Yes,” I said, breathing heavily; my heart rate hadn’t slowed down yet. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to worry about Joonmyun,” Kris suddenly said, startling me. “He’s looking for you, but not here.”

I nodded meekly, unable to respond. This was harder than I thought.

“May I know what’s going on?” Kris asked, eyeing me with a raise of his brows. “You were on decent terms with the both of them yesterday. Why are you avoiding them now?”

“It’s... complicated,” I said, grimacing as I detached myself from the wall. “I appreciate everything that you did, Kris, so if you’ll excuse me, I want disappear off for a while to get my food and then scurry on out of here.”

“Jongin already left,” Kris said with a shrug. “Since he already ate, I think his next quest is to find you. It wouldn’t make sense if he knocks on your door and then sees you walking down the hallway with a plate of food when you’re supposed to be lying in bed sick.”

I smacked my head. Kris was right. “So what do you wager I do then?”

“You can sit and eat. A lot of people are still here.”

“Alright,” I said dejectedly. “I’ll go grab my food and find a place.”

“You can sit with me,” Kris offered. “With Joonmyun gone, I was hoping to sit with Yixing, but obviously he has other priorities to attend to,” –I smiled at his annoyed tone –“and besides, I need to talk to you anyway,” he added as an afterthought.

“Okay, shoot,” I told him once we’d settled across from each other at Kris’s table. The lingering aroma of cooked batter drifted into our noses from the pancake section not too far from where we were sitting.

“It’s about our wages. Hyung says we can have them soon,” he told me as he helped himself to a serving of pancakes, courtesy of the said station.

“How are the uniforms getting on?” I asked, helping myself to the food that I had haphazardly piled onto my plate in my haste.

Kris chewed thoughtfully. “Okay. Coach and I had everything ordered ever since the start of the month. The only problem that we had was the money. But it’s all good now. Almost everyone had turned in their earnings, and I think we have enough to pay for our uniforms and also a few dollars to spare.”

I smiled at him. “That sounds great.” I glanced left and right before leaning forwards to fix Kris with a curious stare. “What happened to the boy?”

For the first time today, Kris smiled. He had a nice smile actually, white teeth and perfect lips stretching to morph his face into a look of pleasant delight that was worlds apart from his usual expressionless mask. He took an indulgent sip of his coffee before finally deeming it appropriate to tell me.

“He’s playing janitor for all the sports teams for the rest of the year,” he said with an evil glint in his eyes. “And that decision was made after Luhan decided plant him in front of one of the goal posts so that he could shoot soccer balls at him under the pretence of practising his shots. Luhan has some pretty mean kicks, might I add, not to mention an excellent aim.”

I laughed. “What did you do?”

“I decided to take it easy with him for now, but no worries. He’ll learn that he made a very grave mistake when he decided to sabotage my team.” Kris shrugged, looking proud of himself. Suddenly, his expression turned serious, and he learned forwards to look at me as he rested his elbows on the table. “But that’s not the only thing I want to talk to you about. Is Yixing alright?”

I grimaced on the inside. The same question again.

“He should be. He looks healthy enough.”

“I’m not talking about his physical well-being,” Kris said with an impatient wave of his hand. “I’m more concerned over his sudden involvement with the West High kid.”

I sighed and swallowed my eggs. “Believe it or not, Jonghyun’s different, Kris. I know you harbour some brand of protectiveness when it comes to the welfare of your team, but Jonghyun is different. I can tell you that much.”

“I’m not here to discuss about my thoughts on that WH kid, I’m here to discuss about Yixing’s change in behaviour. His concentration hasn’t been so good as of late.” He paused for a while, taking another sip of his coffee before he continued. “I know that he has some kind of conflict with that WH kid.”

I said nothing but continued spooning my food into my mouth, keeping my gaze away from Kris.

“Look, I’m worried. I don’t want to have one of my members coming to practice with a black eye and bruises all over his face. Yixing can be a bit difficult to handle as a person, but we’re still comrades in arms at the court. I don’t want him to get hurt.”

It was at the tip of my tongue to ask him if he meant it physically or emotionally, but I kept my mouth shut.

“I know you have a lot in your hands, but all I’m asking for is that you to keep an eye on him. Can you?” he said, fixing me with an imploring gaze.

I looked up and smiled regretfully at him. “I’ve always tried.”

---

 

“Alright guys, welcome to the ...” Mr Park frowned as he squinted at the brochure in his hand, brows creasing as he tried to read the words printed across the paper.

“Ye Olde English Village,” Mr Jung interjected with an exasperated sigh, earning a few laughs from the boys at Mr Park’s expense. Mr Jung shook his head at his colleague and friend. “Really, Jungmin. How on earth do you expect yourself to lead the kids if you yourself don’t know where we are.”

Mr Park flashed a sheepish smile at him before turning to address us once again. “We’re going to be here for the whole day guys, so have fun.” He smiled at us as we began to cheer.

“But,” Mr Jung interjected once again as excited chatters began to fill the air. “We do have rules. You have to be in groups. Contact the teachers if you are sick and wish to leave the village, and remember, this trip is meant to be an educationally enlightening trip, so try to learn something as you have fun.” His lips quirked up slightly in a half smile.

“He’s just worried because he has to write a report about this,” Mr Park joked, earning laughs from everyone. Mr Jung rolled his eyes before dismissing us.

“So do we separate here or have you come to enjoy my company?” Chanyeol joked as everyone slowly began to move towards the entrance, like water flowing through a space between twin rocks.

I rolled my eyes at him as I craned my neck. I had sought Chanyeol out to aid me in my quest of appearing invisible to both Joonmyun and Jongin, and had utilized his tall physique as how I utilized Kris’s when I made him act as my shield so I could hide myself away from the two. Chanyeol, the clown he was, found everything greatly amusing and kept sniggering at me as I latched onto his arm from time to time to haul him to stand in front of me.

“If you had wanted me to date you, all you have to do was ask,” he said with a grin, before doubling over as I gave him a hard jab on the ribs.

“This is nothing like that!” I hissed at him.

His face was still contorted in a grimace as he rubbed his side. “I knew rejection hurts but damn girl, you hit hard.”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head, but I did resolve to be reasonably gentler with him to recompense him for his help. At my request, he also sat with me in the bus, doing a pretty good job at shielding me when he spotted Joonmyun and Jongin amidst the flow of people.

“You can come out now,” he told me jokingly, poking my lightly on the shoulder. I raised my head and began to pull myself onto my seat; I had gone as far as crouching on the floor when Chanyeol announced Joonmyun and Jongin’s arrival.

“Where did they sit?” I whispered quietly as I tried to ease myself onto my seat as inconspicuously as possible.

“Way up front. Jongin’s with Eunkwang and Joonmyun’s sitting with Kris.”

I heaved a sigh of relief and lightly patted him on the arm. “Thanks a lot, Chanyeol.”

“You know, I have no idea what this is about, but I think I’m starting to enjoy this,” Chanyeol said, flashing one of his wide grins at me as his eyes began to twinkle mischievously.  

Right now, I was looking for Hyunji, hoping that she and I could team up so we could walk around together. Up till now, I had sent her multiple texts and received none in reply. I had no idea where she was and who was she with, but I had a strong hunch that both Yixing and Jonghyun had upped their game and as usual, she was caught in between.

Realising that my search was turning out to be fruitless, I sighed and tugged Chanyeol’s arm as I began to walk.

“Where’s Tao?” I asked, trying to initiate a conversation with him.

“Gone off somewhere I suppose,” Chanyeol said with a pout. “I don’t think he’s inclined to look for me anytime sooner. He always complains that I’m too loud.”

“To put it fairly, you are very talkative, not to mention a lot cheekier than most of the boys I know.”

Chanyeol tapped his chin, looking thoughtful for a while, before he broke into a wide grin. “I’ve decided to take that as a compliment.”

I laughed and punched him lightly on the arm.

Ye Olde English Village, or as the boys had coined it, The Village, was basically a tourist spot modelled after what was believed to be 18^th century England. Initially established as part of a government campaign to improve the locals’ English, The Village was basically designed to give one the impression of having travelled back in time: the buildings were designed based on the Victorian architecture and the signs that sprouted up beside the roads were plain and coloured simple black, the words written in artful calligraphy.

Although they wholly succeeded in recreating England in its 18^th century prime, much of the aspects of the modern life were still retained; both Chanyeol and I were greatly relieved when we were told by the gatekeeper that phones were operatable and wifi was accessible.

Since we were one of the last to come in, many of the students had already drifted away with the aid of a folded map. Chanyeol and I had received our copy and were trying to make the head and tail of it. It was unfortunate luck on both our parts that we ended up with a partner that was as inept at directions as the other.

“So,” Chanyeol said, folding the map closed and chucking it into a nearby bin, “walk around and see what we can find?”

I shrugged; the map was useless in our hands anyway.

“I think I might like living in the 18^th century,” Chanyeol commented as we walked, side by side on the cobblestone path. “They don’t have schools back then, do they?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m pretty sure the idea has come around, Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol chuckled, before perking up and grabbing my arm. “Hey look, an ice cream cart. Sweet, they have ice cream even back then.”

I let him tow me towards the small cart. The man standing behind it was dressed to look convincingly like one of the hawkers in the old English times, but thankfully, he still spoke Korean when he greeted the both of us.

After selecting our ice cream (Chanyeol was greatly disappointed over the limited range of flavours, but was nevertheless happy when he acquired three scoops of ice cream on his cone) we walked aimlessly down the streets. Most of the so-called Victorian houses were redesigned and occupied by restaurants and gift stores –another modern touch to what was supposed to be a historical memorial.

“Hey, does this look good on me?” he asked, whirling around and winking at me from behind the monocle he dug out from the bargain stack.

I cracked up at the sight. “You look like one of those rich old men in the books.”

“Rich, huh?” Chanyeol said, grinning. “I like the sound of that, although I’m sure I’m much taller than those old scrooges, not to mention infinitely better-looking.”

I scoffed. “You ego on the other hand, is definitely worse.”

Chanyeol chuckled, placing the monocle back in the pile and running his fingers through his mahogany locks before rubbing his chin. “Now let’s find a little something for you.”

“Oh, no,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “I am not wearing a monocle.”

Chanyeol grinned. “As interesting as how that might turn out to look, I was thinking something a little more feminine.”

“Such as?”

I followed Chanyeol as he drifted away from the bargain stack, his head cocked back in a thoughtful manner as he scanned the racks of the little gift store that we somehow found ourselves drifting into. I saw him turn over various trinkets, some original antiques, most of which he would carefully put back after whistling in awe at the price, and some phony reproductions, which he would pick up and examine for as long as he pleased. Just as I was about to comment on his sudden appreciation for an ancient snow globe, picked at random from a group of its equally ghastly cousins, he suddenly exclaimed and snatched a fan out of a nearby shelf.

“You’ve always been a little bit on the rough and tough side,” he said as he handed me the fan, his ear-splitting grin making him look almost like a devilish elf luring his prey into the depths of a magical forest. “Let’s see how petite and demure you can get.”

I scoffed, slightly insulted. “Watch and learn,” I said confidently, before flicking my wrist and letting the fan roll out smoothly into its full form. I cocked my head in a coquettish manner and batted my eyelashes, moving the fan in slow, rhythmic as I smiled sweetly at him. “And what brings you here, my good sir,” I purred demurely, trying my best to hide my laughter.

Chanyeol cocked back his head and laughed, long and hard. “Man, and to think I once wondered why you have so many boys at your heels.”

I rolled my eyes, having reverted back to my normal self, and snapped the fan shut. “Stop it with the nonsense, Park Chanyeol.”

“It’s not nonsense,” he stated, the last vestiges of laughter colouring his tone and softening his deep voice. “It’s fact. You’re a pretty girl, Aeri, and I don’t think you need anyone to tell you that.”

Unconsciously, I blushed, but I wasn’t willing to back down to Park Chanyeol. “I don’t know. The mirror hasn’t been so kind to me as of late.”

“That’s what you think, but I can name a lot of boys who have named you pretty on at least one occasion –and one of them is Joonmyun.”

This time, I was really speechless. The blush that crept up my cheeks made me feel hot, and I fought to keep a straight face.

At the same moment, the shelf next to us reverberated as something knocked into it. Stunned, I dropped the fan, just in time to see someone dive forward to retrieve a fallen china doll before it met its untimely doom on the floor. I stood there, speechless, as Joonmyun fumbled with the china. He looked up, coughing into his fist when he met my eyes. His ears were tinged crimson.

“Finally decided to show yourself, Joonmyun-ah?” Chanyeol said gleefully, smirking as he leaned against the shelf next to him. “I was wondering how long I was going to have to keep this up before I can actually draw you out.”

I whirled around to face him, sputtering incomprehensibly as I pointed an accusing finger at him.

“He’s been following us ever since we stopped for ice cream,” Chanyeol explained, grinning mischievously at me. “I thought it’d be fun to lead him on a little.”

“Traitor!” I hissed at him, quiet enough so that Joonmyun didn’t hear.

“I couldn’t help myself,” Chanyeol said, grinning. “Besides, I think you’ve made Joonmyun suffer enough.” He saluted me. “Have fun.” Before I could reach out and wring the betrayer’s neck, he had already ducked under the shelf and bolted out of the store.

A heavy feeling settled in my chest as I turned around slowly to look at Joonmyun. The look on his face was a mixture of bashfulness and severity, but still, he ducked his head when he met my eyes.

“Jongin said you were sick,” he said half-accusingly as he bent down to pick up my fan.

“I got better.”

Joonmyun straightened, his eyes turning dark. “I told you not to lie to me.”

I looked away.

“Why do you keep doing this, Aeri?” he said, sounding almost beseeching. “One moment I thought we’re fine and the next, you’re going to such extremes to avoid me. Is there something about me that’s bothering you?”

Yes. The fact that I can’t seem to get you out of my head.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” I told him.

Joonmyun sighed, running his fingers through his ashen locks before turning to me again. “I wanted to walk with you, you know,” he said. “Just the two of us. I thought it’d be fun to have you with me.”

My heart skipped a beat, but I decided to change the topic before I found myself falling for the trap again. “Where’s Kris?”

“Somewhere. I lost him not too long ago when I followed –” he faltered slightly but recovered quickly enough. “When I saw you and Chanyeol.”

I crossed my arms and said nothing.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Joonmyun said, taking a step towards me when he concluded that I wasn’t going to say anything else.

I stared at him, stunned. “I’m not mad at you, Joonmyun. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“There must have been something that I did,” he said with much conviction, “to make you to go through such pains to avoid me, and for that, I’m sorry.”

I didn’t know what to say. Where was he going with this? He couldn’t honestly have read my mind, could he?

“Can we just... start over?” he begged with pleading eyes.

I couldn’t help but think how much this scene looked to an average passer-by like a boy apologising to the girlfriend he had upset. I shook the thought out of my head. I was being ridiculous.

“Fine.”

Joonmyun’s shoulders seemed to sag in relief, and he took another involuntary step forward. For a moment, he hesitated, but then, a smile took over his face and took my hand and placed the fan into my palm, closing my fingers over it.

“So, are we okay?” he asked, his tone soft, his fingers lingering over mine.

I realised that I had been holding my breath. “Yeah.”