~Chapter 22

The front door burst open, alerting everyone in the main room and the kitchen. Chanyeol took three solid strides through the door holding up 2 brown paper bags. Begrudgingly, XiuMin and Suho followed him inside carrying a much heavier load. Suho used his foot to kick the front door closed behind him and they all paused inside the doorway.

“So, what’s for dinner?” asked Sehun.

“SOJU!” Chanyeol proudly announced.

“Aish,” muttered Baekhyun. He shook his head and walked towards the front door to help XiuMin and Suho carry the bags to the kitchen.

Chanyeol stood in place chuckling to himself.

“What are we eating, Chanyeol?” Luhan asked, annoyed.

“Food, followed by soju,” he replied, purposefully being evasive about the contents of the evening’s dinner with his particular happiness over the soju.

“Idiot,” muttered Luhan as he stood and also walked into the kitchen. Paige and Luhan had moved into the main room after their conversation in the kitchen. She stood and followed him back into the kitchen while giggling at Chanyeol. She had to admit that she was somewhat surprised at Chanyeol’s giddiness over the drink. She had already had soju with a few of them at the restaurant during the first week she’d been there, but none of them had expressed the enthusiasm that Chanyeol just did.

When Paige entered the kitchen, she found that Suho had been carrying all of the food, which had been quite a bit. Meanwhile XiuMin was carrying more bottles of soju. “Are you guys restocking a supply of this stuff? Or do you really intend to drink this much with dinner?”

“There are 14 of us,” Chanyeol reasoned.

“There’s practically enough for each person to have their own bottle,” Paige countered while staring at the 10 bottles of soju sitting on the counter. Chanyeol shrugged in reply.

“Can someone go call the others down? The food will get cold quickly,” Suho asked.

D.O. ran up the stairs. Meanwhile, it was decided that they would all sit together in the main room. Lay and Sehun moved the furniture back a bit so all 14 of them could create a circle in the middle of the room.

Suho and Luhan were the first to put the food they wanted on plates and carry it into the main room. They sat towards the right side of the room from the kitchen facing the stairs from across the room. While Luhan had enjoyed part of the afternoon with Paige, he knew that she should really sit by Kai. When Sehun came into the main room, he motioned for him to join him on his right while Suho was sitting to his left.

Chanyeol was busy putting the bottles of soju in the middle of the room and making sure everyone had something to pour drinks into. Baekhyun was rolling his eyes as he started to bring out cups of water for everyone as well. He wasn’t very fond of drinking because it made him turn bright red, and he really hated that. Maybe with some food and water, he could drink a little and not react. D.O. was next to bring food into the main room and sit on Sehun’s right side. When Paige came out of the kitchen, she was a little dismayed to find no open spot next to Luhan, but she sat to D.O.’s right side anyway. She watched as Chanyeol, Chen, Baekhyun, Lay and XiuMin sat from right to left in a semi circle directly opposite from D.O. and her. Amy and Tao filled their plates and joined them finding enough room for the both of them between XiuMin and Suho. Kai joined Paige to her right side after filling his plate almost twice as much as the others. Paige smiled at him and his overflowing plate of food. Kris was the last to take a seat between Kai and Chanyeol somewhat hating the fact that he would be directly facing Tao and Amy from across the circle.

Before they all started to eat their food, Chanyeol encouraged everyone to take just one shot. A murmur of groans filled the room. Sometimes, Chanyeol’s exuberance was a bit much for the whole of them to deal with. Soon, first drinks were taken and the food was happily being eaten. As hungry boys devoured their food, finished plates were pushed to the center of the circle; no one wanted to leave to put anything away.

Kris wasn’t as hungry as he’d originally thought. He pushed a few food items around his plate while watching Tao. He had been wondering all day if Tao had managed to be successful in his pending confession to Amy. He watched as Tao constantly leaned against or encouraged Amy to lean on him. He was constantly holding her hand or keeping his hand near her. He watched when they whispered to each other. He hated that the most. Kris wasn’t sure if it was the fact that he’d kissed her first, or whether he expected Tao to react less attached due to the girls’ short time frame in Korea. Kris forced himself to mostly finish his plate of food so that it could join the plates in the center of the circle.

Luhan was laughing and playing along with most side conversations happening within the group. It was supposed to help his concentration stay off of Paige, but it was a lost cause. From the corner of his vision, he could see Paige sitting with her legs crossed and her hands folded neatly in her lap. She looked about as happy as she had for the most of the afternoon. There, and smiling, but not actually engaged in what was going on around her. He all but glared at Kai. After the guy had finished his coma inducing plate of food he’d leaned back against one of the plush chairs that had been pushed back for everyone to fit into the main room. He had one leg stretched forward and his other knee almost to his chest. He was actually leaning towards Kris and not Paige. Luhan rolled his eyes. He knew that no one would be paying attention to his outward reaction. If they did, no one would know why he was reacting the way he was. He returned his gaze to Paige for a moment. Her eyes kept dropping down to the space on the carpet where her shot glass was sitting. Luhan leaned towards Suho and whispered something to him quickly.

“Guys, guys!” Suho shouted, trying to get a room full of multiple conversations to stop for a moment. Once he had everyone’s attention he continued, “I think only a few of us have taken more than one drink, so lets play a game. Truth or Drink. Anyone can ask you any question they wish and you have to answer truthfully or take a shot!” Most of the guys seemed agreeable to the game. They had played much worse in the past, but with the girls there, it was probably best that Suho had edited out the ‘dare’ part of the game. Everyone took a turn making sure their glasses each had a shot worth of soju in them before starting the questions.

D.O. volunteered to be the first to be asked a question. While everyone stumbled a bit to figure out whom or in what order someone should ask the question. They finally decided that after each person was asked, they then had to ask a question but to anyone they wanted. Lay quickly asked D.O. a simple question. Once D.O. had answered, he turned towards Chen as the next victim. “If you were to wind up stranded on an island, with only one companion among those in this room, who would you pick?”

Chen’s eyes roamed the circle before draping his arm around Baekhyun’s shoulder. “Baekhyun!” In return, Baekhyun shoved Chen’s arm off his shoulder, but not without laughing.

“Can I take a shot for being picked?” Baekhyun muttered. Chen punched Baekhyun’s arm. “Aish!” he exclaimed while rubbing the injured spot.

They made it through five more questions, and no one had taken a shot yet. “Ugh! You guys have to ask better questions!” Chanyeol stated.

“Then you ask a question!” XiuMin stated. It was his turn to ask so he willingly passed the opportunity to Chanyeol.

“Fine.” Chanyeol eyed the group. “Kris, if you could make anyone in this room your slave, who would it be and what would you make them do first?”

Kris raised an eyebrow, not expecting to be Chanyeol’s victim. He deliberately avoided looking at Tao. His first inclination would have been to make him the slave and tell him to leave Amy alone. But, he couldn’t very well tell anyone that out loud. He stared down at the shot glass and realized that what Chanyeol really wanted was to see people too afraid to answer questions. Instead of figuring out a better scenario, he grabbed the shot glass and knocked it back. When he put the glass down, he looked up to see 13 pairs of eyes staring. Instantly, the entire room was in a roar trying to figure out who and why he would have rather taken the shot instead of answer. Kris just waved his hand in front of him reconfirming that he wasn’t about to answer the question.

Once the wave of suspicions and assumptions died down, it was Kris’ turn to ask someone a question. “Suho, if you had to trade bodies with anyone in this room, who would it be?”

“Permanently?” Suho asked with disgust written all over his face.

“For a week…” Kris offered.

“Why do you have that look on your face? Are we all just so ugly?” Sehun prodded.

“What? Do you want to trade?” Suho asked.

“No, you’re old.”

“YAH!” Suho yelled, reaching past Luhan to smack Sehun’s shoulder. “Just for that, I’m picking you.”

“At least it won’t come true,” Sehun laughed.

Suho rolled his eyes while other members were giggling. He had thought of a question already, but wasn’t sure who to ask. He looked at Luhan and shrugged, figuring he was as good as anyone else. “Luhan, have you ever had a crush on anyone’s girlfriend?”

Luhan’s gaze snapped to his leader. “None of you have girlfriends,” he replied quickly.

“I said ‘ever’, but fine. Have you ever had a crush on anyone that any of us have been interested in?” Suho specified.

“Now here’s a topic that would piss off a great deal of fan girls,” Amy muttered.

Luhan let out a sigh before grabbing the shot glass and drinking it back quickly. He wasn’t about to go there, and even though taking the shot was as good as admitting that it may have happened, he still wasn’t giving anyone the opportunity to figure it out. He heard a handful of members try to ask anyway, but what was truly annoying was the scoff that he heard come out of Kai’s mouth. It was all Kai’s fault that Luhan was frustrated in the first place. If he didn’t have the crazy notion to let Paige figure things out for herself, not to mention attempting to avoid strain between his friend and band-mate, he would have already moved in and snagged her from him.

The next round of questions all resulted in shots being taken. They were either embarrassing to answer or questions that the guys didn’t want to answer in front of the girls. But as more of the questions resulted in drinking, the questions kept gaining caliber as they tried to out embarrass each other. Paige and Amy were both in a fit of laughter. They were both a little tipsy from the soju, but the antics from the guys was much more intoxicating. XiuMin pulled both of the girls back to a semi serious state when he asked Paige to rank Exo in terms of whom she liked most to least. Paige was quick to back out, taking a shot of soju. Many of the members pouted, wanting to know just what the girls’ opinions were. XiuMin quickly turned to Amy and asked the same question.

“Okay! Okay! I’ll do it!” Amy stood up. “So first is…”

“Me!” Tao stood up, securing both his position for first place and laughter from the group.

“Yes, yes. Can I do this please?” Amy asked him sweetly.

“Yup!” Tao said, sitting back down.

“Suho.” Amy turned and pointed. Suho actually looked a little shocked, but he grinned. He looked at Tao who was glaring. “I didn’t pick him because I have a crush on him, dork,” Amy said after noticing Tao’s glare. “He’s been incredibly hospitable and very nice to Paige and I.” Tao wiped the jealous look of his face.

Idiot, Kris thought. It was bugging him that he hadn’t been first or second. When they first arrived, he’d been the one to arrange everything, make their transition smooth and try to fix their vacation. Not to mention the kiss that still burned in the back of his head. He knew Tao had weaseled himself in there and captured Amy’s attention, but he was still expecting to beat Suho on this list of hers.

“D.O.” Amy smiled to the second member of Exo to look a little shocked. “You’ve spoiled us with your cooking.”

Paige nodded and watched at D.O.’s face turned slightly smug. She hadn’t regretted taking the shot. This was too much pressure. She was glad that Amy had the confidence to actually make this list.

“XiuMin, then Chanyeol, and Chen. You guys are way too much fun.” Amy turned to Luhan, with a small bow. “Luhan, because you’ve been wonderful to Paige.”

Luhan smiled, turning to Paige who was blushing just slightly. Again, he heard a scoff coming from right next to her. Apparently, Kai had enough and shifted his position closer to Paige. He smiled at her when she reacted in shock to him finally moving closer to her. He shook his head slightly to his right, indicating that she should scoot a little closer to him as well. Much to Luhan’s dismay, Kai ran his hand down her arm before interlocking his fingers with hers. Luhan looked back at Paige’s face to find a mixture of anxiety and happiness at war. He rolled his eyes and almost took the shot in front of him, but resisted.

Amy suddenly hated that she was towards the bottom of the list. “Sehun, Lay, Baekhyun, Kris, and Kai,” she blurted quickly before sitting back down with Tao. Tao gave her a hug, which felt like a shield against any oncoming disappointment from the remaining members. However, when she looked out, everyone was laughing, except for Kris and Kai. She noticed that Kai was distracted with Paige. However, Kris was intensely fixated on something on the floor. Quick to change the topic, Amy picked the next victim.

“Kai, if you could pick any of the super powers in ‘Mama’, which would it be?”

“I’d keep teleportation,” he replied, quickly.

“Other than your own! That’s so boring!” Amy stated.

Kai’s eyes swept over the groups as if needing to remember what all of the options were. “Flight, I guess.”

“That’s not a far cry from being able to teleport. But both would come in handy in a long distance relationship, right?” Amy laughed. Paige’s gaze whipped to Amy somewhat shocked that she took that turn with her comment. Amy turned her gaze back to Tao, “So is stopping time!” she gasped. Tao laughed and pulled her till she was sitting in front of him and leaning back on his chest.

Paige felt Kai let go of her hand. He kept it next to hers but he wasn’t holding it anymore.

Kris felt like he was going to throw up in his mouth. Ever since learning that Tao was going to confess, he'd realized just how close the two of them had become.

Kai had already asked a question to one of the other guys. More shots were had and soon it was back to Chen having the floor.   

Chen had devised a question specifically for Amy. If Tao was going to confess, not that it looked like Amy would deny such a thing; his next question may help him out. “Amy, what is your idea of a great date?”

“Oh well, it doesn’t really matter as long as it is uninterrupted time that I can spend with the other person. It should be somewhat spontaneous and fun! Location and specific activities aren’t as important as how much fun we end up having,” she smiled. Once she had finished answering, she sat up from her position against Tao’s chest and fired a question at Suho.

The leader had answered most things asked of him, and did no different after Amy’s question. He turned the tables on Chanyeol though who seemed to have sneaked shots in between other people asking questions. If the reaction king got much louder when he laughed they were going to have to gag him. Baekhyun tried dutifully to answer everything asked of him as he’d hit his tolerance limit with the soju and wanted nothing more of the shot glass in front of him. The ball was once again in Luhan’s court and even though he knew that the question he was about to ask was hitting a little low, he proceeded.

“Paige. If you could travel anywhere at this exact moment in time, where would you go?”

In an instant, Paige was bombarded by an overwhelming amount of thoughts simultaneously. Once the sentence had escaped his lips, she immediately thought of home. She looked down at Kai’s hand next to hers, when it had been locked with hers earlier. She thought of the conversation she’d had with Luhan hours ago. He was still the only one she had been able to admit the truth to. Paige grabbed the shot glass and knocked it back. When she looked up, she realized she hadn’t considered what a dumb question that had been to take a shot over. She looked at Luhan. He knew what her answer was going to be, but he still asked it.

“Why wouldn’t you answer that? Did you just want the shot?” Amy asked, slurring her sentence just slightly.

“It’s my turn to ask a question,” Paige replied curtly.

“Okay then!” Amy replied.

Paige wavered slightly, but formed the question that she directed to Lay. He answered it quickly beginning another fast round of short answers and quick shots.

It was Tao’s turn, and he asked his question with complete confidence in the answer he was going to receive. “Amy, which member gave you the best first impression?”

“Me!” Kris quickly responded, standing, much like Tao did when Amy had begun putting the Exo members in order. 

“Sit down, Kris.” Kai stated.

“Why? So that idiot can keep thinking that the right thing to do is chase a girl who’s going to be leaving soon? Or for that matter, a girl who kissed me the third day that she was here?”

Paige’s gasp echoed through the sudden silence. She stared at Kris. She couldn’t believe that he had actually come forward about the kiss. Her gaze swept the room with the empty bottles and realized that this whole night had taken a horribly wrong turn.

“Excuse me?” Tao asked standing quickly and slightly disregarding that Amy had to move suddenly to accommodate his movement.

Amy tried to get to her feet, but she was finding that the room wasn’t staying as straight as she would have preferred. She had managed to get to her feet, but was still bent at the waist, staring at the floor, which wasn’t moving as quickly as the walls. “I didn’t kiss him…” The rest of her sentence came out as gibberish.

“Like hell!” Kris stated.

“You… kissed. Upset. Oh my God, this room needs… still. You… unavailable… what the?” Amy felt like she’d been staring at the same spot on the carpet for an hour when she suddenly had help standing up straight and looking at Kris in the eyes. She turned her gaze to her right to notice Paige standing next to her with her arm helping to support her. Tao was directly in front of her glaring at Kris as though it was taking every bit of effort to keep from lunging.

“She came running into the studio that morning and we kissed, twice,” Kris stated. “She’s liked me longer than you.”

“No,” Amy argued. Kris flashed a glare at her.

Paige watched as several members were standing up and taking steps back, making the circle in the main room much larger. Kai, D.O., and Luhan were still sitting since they were closer to the farthest wall in the room.

“Tao…” Paige started, willing to explain exactly what Amy had told her in confidence.

“Shhh,” Tao hissed. “Are you blind?” he turned his attention back to Kris. “I haven’t seen her around you at all in the past couple of weeks. In fact, the last time you seemed to care was in the damn TV room when you were glaring at me all stupid.  I really doubt she kissed you with how dumb you’ve been acting.” Tao watched in semi disbelief as Kris raised one of his hands slightly as if he’d actually entertained hitting him.

“Tao, we did… but I was… upset,” Amy started.

“She had just admitted that she wouldn’t see the necklace again and was extremely upset. She ran up there to escape not seek out anyone,” Paige quickly added feeling like the truth would never worm it’s way in if she didn’t attempt to throw it out there.

Tao kept Kris locked in place with his stare. He let the words sink into his head. And then he thought to the first time he’d kissed her. It must have been another few days after the incident with Kris. Tao remembered how rushed Kris had been in searching for Amy and how if he hadn’t taken his time, they may not have found her as quickly as they had.

Amy didn’t have enough strength to keep standing, let alone the will to force her thoughts into Tao’s head. As if that were possible. She wanted nothing more than to force him to believe her. She closed her eyes, relying on Paige to keep her standing while waiting for the silence to be broken.

“I don’t care if you kissed her or not, Kris. She’s been mine for longer than three days, so if that’s the only hold you have I’m not worried.”

“A week. Tao, it hasn’t even been a full two weeks since they got here!” Kris yelled.

“That’s still twice as long as whatever moronic hold you think you have!” Tao exclaimed.

“You’re such a child!”

“Me?!” Tao took another step towards Kris. This time Suho stepped up and put a hand on Tao’s shoulder.

“I’m not going to beat him up, Suho. I’d like to, but I’m not.” Still, Suho didn’t remove his hand from Tao’s shoulder.

“Tao?” Amy murmured. She couldn’t believe how steadfast he was in his confidence. She needed to know if he was mad at her or not.

“Give me a sec, babe,” he replied quickly.

At the pet name, her knees gave out and Paige couldn’t help but let her sink back into a sitting position on the floor. Amy couldn’t help but let tears start to fall. She was drunk, the room was spinning, and all she wanted was Tao.

“You two need to knock this off. Everyone has been drinking and this isn’t the best time to rationally deal with this,” Suho reasoned.

“I’m not drunk!” both Kris and Tao said in unison.

Paige stared at her friend who had been reduced to a lump on the floor. “I should get her upstairs,” Paige muttered. She looked at Amy, not really knowing how much strength she had to get her up the stairs, but knowing that they needed to stop causing chaos between these boys. Paige knelt down next to Amy. “Do you want to go upstairs?”

“No. They’re moving too,” she was still sobbing quietly. “I just… Tao,” she slurred.

Suddenly, two very strong arms lifted her until she practically standing. Practically, since her legs weren’t actually supporting any weight. She looked up trying to fix her eyes on Tao’s face.

“Tomorrow, I’m taking you on your dream date, okay?” Tao asked. Amy looked confused for a moment, and then remembered the question that Chen had asked her. She nodded. He gave her a kiss on the forehead. Amy felt Paige trying to get a hold and help her friend balance as Tao released his hold hoping that her legs would support her at least until they made it up the stairs.

They succeeded the task while the entire dorm was still dead quiet as no one was willing to be the first to speak up. When Tao heard the upstairs bedroom door slam closed, he continued his icy stare at Kris.

“I honestly don’t care what happened, Kris. I don’t know what happened, but I’ve been right next to her since we found her at Itaewon and I have no intention to do otherwise!”

“I backed off because I knew they were only going to be here for a short amount of time. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t care, or that I didn’t want to stay next to her.”

“Fine, but you made your decision! So keep it!”

“Kris, you can’t kiss her and then ignore her and flip out when she choses someone who’s actually willing to put the effort into it,” Kai stated.

Luhan laughter was the last thing anyone in that room expected to hear. “Right, right Kai. Like you should talk,” Luhan continued to laugh.

“What the heck is your problem?” Kai asked.

“Isn’t that all you do? Kiss and then treat her like she has the plague the rest of the time?” Luhan stated, dryly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kai muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Really, Kai? So why is it that Paige spends so much of her time moping around this place, huh?” There was a flurry of whispers as everyone was trying to piece together the complexity of the situations that had gone on underneath everyone’s noses without anyone noticing.

“I knew you liked her!” Kai got to his feet, reassured of all the times he had worried that Paige was spending too much time with or gawking at Luhan.

“What about you? Do you like her Kai? I mean honestly? You kiss her, but then you keep yourself distanced away from her despite how much she longs to have more attention and time with you.”

“I know that, Luhan. I’m trying to be careful. I’m trying to figure out exactly what to do when they get ready to leave!”

“Isn’t it more important that she have a clear understanding of how you feel first?”

“She knows that I like her,” Kai argued.

“Hardly.”

“Why the hell do you care Luhan?”

“Why shouldn’t I care? If anyone in this room knew what you were putting her through they’d be yelling at you right now!” Luhan yelled.

“It’s no one else’s business, Luhan! Including yours!”

“It is, because it affects Paige!”

“Luhan, I’ve known you for quite a while now. Since when is your two week friendship with Paige more important than what I’m trying to figure out and go through right now?” Kai wondered.

“It’s not that it’s more important! It’s that you’re hurting her. If she were hurting you, the situation would be flipped Kai.”

“And how do you know that this isn’t killing me?!”

“I don’t! I’m trying to figure it out. Based on your actions it doesn’t seem like it. So, please, just tell me!” Luhan took a moment to breathe. He was feeling winded and exhausted.

“I can’t come up with an answer or make a decision regarding Paige. I didn’t plan on liking her and I didn’t, nor do I, want to hurt her,” Kai confessed. “What would you do, Luhan?”

Luhan really did pause and think. The truth was, he didn’t know.

“Everyone just go. Go to your rooms and just go to sleep. We can’t do this all night and most of us are too tired or too intoxicated to deal with this,” Suho stated.

“Did I just wake up in a drama?” Chanyeol stated. He’d waited through both scenes to make that statement. But, when he realized that no one was laughing, he simply sighed.

“Idiot,” Baekhyun muttered, helping his roommate navigate towards the stairs. He really wished his room wasn’t all the way up on the third floor.

Amy was out. Paige had helped her onto the bed. Amy had collapsed happily into the pillow mumbling about being Tao’s babe.

Paige also collapsed onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. She could still hear voices from downstairs. She knew the boys were still arguing, but she didn’t have the strength to try to listen in. Sleep threatened to overtake her, but not before she finally heard the sound of footsteps clomping up the stairs. The movement was staggered and loud. At the sound of those same steps heading up to the third floor, Paige’s eyes closed and were far too heavy to open again.

A/N

OMG! Now everyone knows!

Lol. Sorry, my author's notes are ridiculous because half the time I don't know if there's anything I really need to point out or talk about. Especially since this story is still flying under the radar and not recieving much of any feedback.

If I get feedback, my author's notes will improve.

~Until Next Week~