~Chapter 25

 

Amy excused herself after her and Tao had entered the dorm. It was a bit unnerving to see several of the guys giving the two of them looks, especially Chen who was nothing but obvious in his encouragement. All she really wanted to do was play over every moment of her date, and with no one else but her best friend.

Amy burst into their shared room and slammed the door behind her.

“Someone had a good time!” Paige greeted with a large smile. She had one ear bud in, listening to music and continuing her doodles. She hadn’t found anything else to productively do and while she’d spent the afternoon partially with Kai, she’d also enjoyed the time she’d had to herself.

“IT WAS PERFECT!” Amy squealed and bounced up onto her mattress. She sat on her knees and bounced slightly while replaying the moments in the zoo. “And, and look!” Amy whipped out her phone and pulled up the first of several pictures that her and Tao had taken together during the date.

“Oh boy, you guys are ridiculous,” Paige stated, feeding into her friend’s giddy state of being.

“That’s not even the best part!” Amy continued. “Look, look,” Amy said while moving way too far into Paige’s personal space to show her the necklace.

Paige moved back an inch. “That’s adorable!”

Amy sat back on her mattress, continuing to hold the charm between her fingers. “He doesn’t want us to end just because I’m going home,” Amy stated, a little quieter.

Paige tried to keep her concern in check, at least outwardly. “Oh? You mean he actually wants to try an official long distance relationship?”

“Mhmm. He wants to visit when he can, and keep in touch.”

“Amy. You two will be about half a world away from each other. That’s one hell of a distance,” Paige started.

“I know! I know! It’s improbable, but I want to try! And so does he.”

“They just debuted. You know it could be months or years until the two of you could be anything more permanent than long distance?"

Amy nodded. Her smile faded slightly, but she was still on a high from the date and was stubbornly set on giving this a go. She was about to ask Paige to help her with dealing with all of it when she noticed her suitcase in the corner of the room.

“WHEN DID THAT GET HERE?!” Amy yelled, immediately standing and pointing at the suitcase.

Paige had momentarily forgotten about Amy’s returned luggage. She knew her friend was in for disappointment. “Amy. The manager that came to see Kris today brought it with him. The reason they came was to give it to Kris so he could send it to us,” Paige quickly explained. Before Amy could take a step towards the bag, Paige continued. “Amy, the necklace isn’t there.”

Amy’s posture must have dropped a few inches. Still, she walked to the suitcase and hauled it up on her mattress to do a complete inspection. She tore through what was left of the contents and wound up empty handed, just as Paige had stated. “It’s really gone.”

Paige got off of her mattress and wrapped her arms around her best friend. “I’m sorry.” A moment later, Paige felt a tear splash onto her arm. She hugged Amy a little tighter and asked if there was anything she could do.

Amy shrugged and pulled out of the embrace. She hauled her suitcase back off of the bed and put it back in the corner. She had reasons to both love and hate their trip to Korea. She spent the entire day loving it, and at the end, wound up hating it. Truthfully, she was still mad at herself for bringing the necklace and having it go missing. She felt guilty towards her brother, and mostly just mad with herself.

“I am going back downstairs. Do you want to come with me?” Amy asked Paige. Paige nodded and then motioned to the door for Amy to go ahead.

Amy walked out of the door, with Paige directly behind her. Paige closed the door to the room and walked to the stairs. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Amy eyed Tao in the kitchen and made a dead sprint into his arms that he threw open for her after seeing the expression on her face.

“Amy’s luggage was returned today. The necklace is gone,” Paige stated from just outside the kitchen entryway. Tao hugged Amy a little tighter and placed a kiss on the top of her head. Paige walked to an open barstool at the counter and sat down.

Chen, who had been in the kitchen as well, grabbed both girls a glass of water and slid them across the counter. No one said anything for a couple of minutes.

Baekhyun broke the silence, finally. “Tomorrow is our last day before China. We’d really like to get out of here and get some fresh air. We were thinking of going to a place outside of the city for the early afternoon. How does that sound?”

“All of us? Like all fourteen of us?” Paige asked, slightly bewildered that they would chance the exposure.

“Yeah. Like I said, it’s outside of the city and hopefully with very few tourists,” Baekhyun continued.

“That sounds great,” Paige replied.

Amy looked at Baekhyun while still in Tao’s arms. “It does sound nice,” she murmured.

“Alright then. Everyone should be ready by about 11 am. We’ll get there right at lunch time!” Baekhyun instructed. The girls nodded in unison.

Amy yawned and leaned into Tao’s chest. She felt him laugh. “You’re tired. Go get sleep,” Tao instructed.

“Mmmmmm,” Amy mumbled in disagreement.

“Come on,” Paige urged, trying to pry her friend off of Tao. “You can smother him first thing in the morning,” she said sarcastically.

“Really? Promise?” Amy replied with mock sincerity. Amy cheekily smiled as she let Paige pull her off of him.

“Nerd,” Paige mumbled.

The girls made their way back upstairs and to their room. Fatigue took over Amy quickly after realizing that she was actually quite tired from being at the zoo for most of the day. Paige took a little longer, but sleep finally overtook her as well.

 

---

 

The morning went by quickly and soon they were loading up into a van and another smaller cab. Ten of them were able to sardine into the van together while the other four fit decently in the car. XiuMin had lugged a duffle bag and two large brown paper bags with him and placed them into the trunk of the car.

The car ride was silent, if just due to the fact that everyone watched as the view of the city become smaller and part of the countryside begin to swallow them up. In a little less than an hour, they arrived at a large park. Much as Baekhyun had hoped, there were little to no people anywhere within view. Everyone unloaded and walked a while into the park until they found a spot that seemed tucked away and decently private, yet inviting.

The trees all had their fall colors and the grass was covered in a decent blanket of fallen leaves. As they walked, many of them kicked the leaves and a few of the boys started to grab handfuls and throw them at each other.

“Yah! I’m going to drop the food!” XiuMin yelled after being hit in the back of the head with a handful of leaves. He spun his gaze around, but at least 4 of the possible culprits all looked guilty. He shook his head and found a flat area to set down the bags.

XiuMin and Chen unpacked the food from the bags and handed out the packed lunches. Everyone found a spot to sit and began digging in.

Truthfully, it was rather cold, but it kept the park from being busy like it would have been in the midst of summer. Paige ate her food while rubbing her hands in between bites. She almost wished for gloves, except it would have been tremendously awkward while eating. She would have been inconvenienced either way. Amy and Tao were sitting just a few feet behind her on a very short concrete divider that wound around part of the lawn on one side of the park. She remembered how much Amy was not the outdoors type. Of course walking through a park or being on a playground was fun, but if she could avoid bugs and hiking she did. When Paige was finished with her meal, she tucked her hands into her pockets and lay down in the grass, not carrying about the probability that twigs and leaves were probably stuck in her hair.

The sun was peeking between clouds and at that moment decided to shine through giving the entire group some warmth for a moment. Paige took a deep breath and closed her eyes. It was amusing that finding some peace made her feel like she wasn’t quite as far away from home as she’d felt the last couple weeks. Paige sat back up when she heard the sound of everyone moving about.

Lay had one of the brown bags and was collecting everyone’s empty lunch containers to throw out. She added hers to the bag and stood up to brush herself off.

“Anyone up for a game?” XiuMin asked pulling a ball out of the duffle bag. A symphony of agreement sprang from the group, including Amy whom Paige figured only said yes because Tao was going to play.

Paige was grateful when she saw Chen and D.O. back out. She shook her head and opted to join them instead of get in the middle of what might predictably turn competitive.

“I’ll sit out too. It’ll keep the teams even,” announced Luhan. He smiled at Paige.

“Alright, how should we split up?” XiuMin asked.

“I’m on your team,” Suho directed at XiuMin.

“I’ll start the other team,” Kris offered.

“I’m with Kris,” Sehun stated.

“Amy and Tao can’t be on the same team,” Lay stated. He grabbed Tao’s wrist dragging him to XiuMin’s team, leaving Amy to join Kris and Sehun. Tao risked a glance at Kris not liking that she was on his team.

"I'm on XiuMin's team," stated Kai as he followed Tao and Lay.

“That leaves Baekhyun and myself over here,” pointed Chanyeol.

“Alright,” XiuMin started, while looking at their surroundings. “The trees over there is our goal, and those are yours,” he pointed in opposite directions. Everyone nodded in understanding and spread out to start the game.

D.O. and Chen took seats on the cement divider. Paige was still standing in the same spot where she had stood after lunch. It was a safe distance from the area of the game. She was very curious about the dynamic of the teams and found herself glued to watching them.

Her concentration was momentarily broken when she felt something tugging at her hair.

Paige whipped her head around to find Luhan smiling and picking debris from her hair. “You’re a mess,” he laughed.

“Oh, well, it’s not that big of a deal.” Paige shook her hair, which only added to the twigs becoming further tangled.

“Good job,” Luhan said sarcastically, continuing to try to pull the twigs out of her hair.

“You don’t have to do that. I really don’t care.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Is it that messy?”

“You look like a scarecrow!” Chen stated from behind them.

“Thanks,” Paige replied dryly. She pulled sections of her hair forward attempting to get anything out that she could while Luhan worked on the back of her hair. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep the sensations at bay as the feel of someone else’s hands in her hair was making her shiver.

“What else did XiuMin bring?” D.O. asked looking at the duffle bag. Chen got up and rifled through it.

“Not much, but here’s a Frisbee.”

“Lets play!” D.O. stated.

“Alright, go over there,” Chen pointed away from where they were standing.

“Me too!” Paige exclaimed. She ran to create a triangle between the three of them completely ignoring that Luhan had still been trying to fix her messy hair.

Luhan just shook his head and walked across from Paige to create a large square between the four of them. They began to toss the Frisbee around, not in any serious sort of fashion.

Paige was standing with a clear view of the other game. For the most part, everyone was having a fun time. As predicted, Tao and Kris were competitively battling against each other despite the friendly tone of the game. Finally, Sehun managed to score a point.

“YEAH! Wooohooo!” Chanyeol screamed. He turned towards the closest teammate, which happened to be Amy, and gave her two high-fives.

“Yah!” Tao shouted from across the field.

Paige doubled over with laughter. “IT WAS A HIGH-FIVE, TAO!” she screamed to clarify, noting the obvious reaction to any skin ship between Amy and anyone else but him. Yes, Tao was edgy.

The game resumed.

Chen and Luhan were cracking jokes, as no one seemed to be doing well at either throwing or catching the Frisbee. At one point, Paige was pretty sure that any dog could do better at this game than her. She managed to throw it way off to the side and she had a fear of the Frisbee whacking her in the head preventing her from proactively attempting to catch the flying disc.

Again, the disc was tossed to her. She might have made an attempt, due to its low flight, but XiuMin’s team scored a goal at the same moment. The disc landed in the grass close to her feet, forgotten as everyone paid attention to the other game.

Amy had spent the game somewhat aimlessly running around the field. She considered herself to be the player that should stay in the odd spot in case the ball went in some direction no one was expecting. Actually, she was just running around with the boys while they competitively stopped each other from scoring on multiple accounts. When the ball did make it to her, she kicked it quickly to the closest teammate.

After the last point against her team, XiuMin’s team had managed to kick the ball back towards the goal and was dangerously close to another point. Amy excitedly watched as Tao was leading the ball. She should be routing for her own teammates, and she was, outwardly. Inwardly, she was his biggest cheerleader. However, Kris quickly closed in on Tao and tried to thwart his progress towards the goal.

What began as a legitimate face off turned into an awkward match of who-could-trip-who. Thankfully, for the rest of XiuMin’s team, Lay was quick to recover the ball and kick it in for a goal. It took the cheering to break Kris and Tao from their face off and realize that neither of them had paid any attention to the ball. Amy heard Baekhyun mumbling off to her left. The only word she could pick out was ‘idiots’.   

“Enough with the ball game! Let’s do something else!” Chanyeol practically whined in the middle of the field. Without argument, everyone on the field gave into the suggestion and walked to the side where Luhan, Chen, D.O., and Paige were standing.

“What should we do?” D.O. asked. No one answered immediately and many of them started to sit down on the grass.

“Take a nap,” muttered Suho who was sitting next to Lay, looking as though he actually really wanted to.

“No, not when all of you are leaving tomorrow,” Amy argued. She was standing next to Paige looking quite indignant.

“Okay, okay. No nap,” Suho relented while still managing to lean his head on Lay’s shoulder.

“Hey! Don’t close your eyes!” Amy shouted, causing laughter from several within the group.

“I’m not!” Suho stated.

“Are you guys up for a game? Not a sport, but just a game?” Paige asked. She had stumbled across an idea. They all stared at her, waiting to hear the idea without actually responding. “You know how we played flashlight tag at night in the house? Well, we could play freeze tag. Whoever we chose to be it can tag as many people as they want and they all have to freeze in the spot they were in, the only way they can move again is to be tagged by someone who isn’t frozen yet.”

“So, if you can get everyone frozen, you win?” Kris asked.

“Yes, because then we’d have to start over,” Paige laughed.

“Ugh,” Suho mumbled, standing up. Those who were still sitting followed suit.

“Who wants to be it first?” Suho asked.

“I will!” Sehun volunteered. This time, several others started to grumble. Sehun was definitely fast enough to catch most of them and quickly.

“Everyone ready?” Paige asked. Everyone nodded, and some started to back up, ready to sprint. “Go!”

Sehun knew he’d catch the girls quickly so he gave them a break and took a dead sprint towards his fellow band mates. He makes an easy target out of Chen and Baekhyun who are now ‘frozen’ except for the laughter bubbling from both of them. Sehun’s chase continued as he took off to his right in favor of following Kris and XiuMin.

Paige saw the opening to double back and run to the two frozen boys in an attempt to unfreeze them. She kept her eyes glued on Sehun’s chase to make sure she stayed in the clear until she reached both of the boys and tagged their shoulders. They both took off to the left, opposite of where Sehun was, leaving Paige to catch her breath in the spot they’d just been.

Sehun managed to tag Kris, but lost his pace towards XiuMin. Instead, he glanced back to where his first two victims should have been standing. He made glaring eye contact with Paige who squealed and set off running back in the direction she’d come from. His mind was set. To hell with being fair! He took off towards Paige, gaining ground quickly.

Paige risked a glance over her shoulder to see Sehun closing the distance between them. Something between laughter and a scream escaped her lips just moments before she felt the contact on her shoulder signaling that she was frozen. She stood in place, catching her breath and giggling. She watched Sehun stop and breathe while scanning for his next victim and taking off.

It was Suho that came running towards her a few moments later. He unfroze her and she turned to look at the field. She saw Amy standing, obviously having been tagged as well. Sehun was nowhere to be seen though, but honestly she couldn’t see at least 6 of the members of Exo. Paige wondered just how far they’d run off to.

Paige made her way to Amy, but was beat by Tao who ran up and kissed Amy’s cheek to unfreeze her. “HEY! This isn’t kiss tag!” Paige shouted.

Amy stuck her tongue out at her best friend. Paige laughed. Just then Sehun shot out from between two trees across the field. Paige and Amy screamed and took off running in different directions. However, Sehun took off after Tao.

Amy circled around the field and made her way to the direction Sehun had come from to see if he’d successfully frozen anyone just outside of their field of vision. Amy made it to another clearing and found five of them standing around.

“Are ya’ll frozen?!” she yelled.

“Nope, but we know Sehun’s over there so we’re staying here for now,” Luhan answered. She finished her jog by joining the group. Luhan, Chanyeol, Baekhyun, Lay, and XiuMin looked like they were ready to sprint if they needed to, but it was nice to not run at the moment.

Back at the field, Paige noticed that Kris was still frozen off in the distance away from her. Tao had managed to be tagged as well. Suho was a safe distance away, on her right, but still within eyesight. She couldn’t see Amy anymore. A look to her left found D.O. safely hidden. Lucky him, she thought. At least he wasn’t frantically running like the rest of them.

Sehun gave himself a moment to stand near Tao as if protecting his latest victim, but mostly just catching his breath. While seeing that everyone was pretty far apart, he took off back towards the clearing.

At the same moment that Sehun had disappeared; Kai appeared finally unfreezing Kris and then Tao.

Everyone on the field was running as they heard the members who were out of eyesight all yelp at Sehun’s arrival. Many of which suddenly burst back onto the field. Paige collapsed with the hilarity of it all. She sat in the grass and held her stomach as she was overcome by a fit of laughter. She would forever remember the look of the majority of Exo members desperately running in her direction and a very tired Sehun making a very determined effort to catch them.

Suho joined her, sitting in the grass and basically giving up on the game. One by one, they all made their way to where Suho and Paige were sitting. Everyone collapsed and tried to catch their breath. D.O. grabbed the duffle bag, which had some water bottles inside and began to pass them around to share.

In the moments that followed, the only thing that was heard was either laughter or heavy breathing. They were all exhausted.

 

---

 

The pile of shoes by the front door was a disaster. They all had trudged into the dorm and kicked them off without any thought to keeping them arranged or caring. Some of the guys filtered upstairs to shower while the rest of them found a comfy place to relax. Paige was pretty sure that she still had twigs in her hair and made a mental note to get in the shower before going to bed.

“Can we just order some take out? I do not want to cook,” asked D.O. Suho agreed and started asking everyone what he or she would like to eat so he could go pick up the food. After coming to a general consensus, Suho left with Chen to get them dinner.

“You guys still have to pack, right?” Paige asked those who were still in the main room.

“Most of us threw our stuff together this morning. We’ll do last minute stuff after we wake up tomorrow,” Kris answered.

“That means you can truly relax tonight,” Paige continued.

“It was a good plan to go to the park. I doubt anyone will have trouble falling asleep tonight.”

“Good,” Paige returned. Kai had been the first one to jump in the shower, but he was already done and heading back downstairs. He took a seat next to Paige. She could hear his stomach growl a bit and she had to agree that she was anxiously waiting for dinner. “Are you excited to go to China?” she asked.

“Sure. Traveling is always interesting. We don’t always get to play the role of tourist, but it at least gets a few of us back ‘home’. Lay, Luhan, and Tao love going back. Kris is Chinese, but his home is Canada,” Kai explained.

“I hope you guys aren’t so busy that you can’t enjoy being there,” Paige continued.

“We always try.”

The front door opened and Suho and Chen walked in carrying bags of food. All conversation was dropped as everyone hurried to set out the food, grab plates, and devour it. Those who had gone upstairs were told there was food and hurriedly came down should their hungry housemates eat the food too quickly.

After dinner, when everyone had gone in different directions for the rest of the evening, Suho sat in the main room one seat to the left of Paige. “When we leave, you girls will have run of the dorm for a few days. Our management will be with us for the most part. You should feel free to enjoy this last week of your vacation,” he started.

“Thank you, for letting us stay. I know that since Amy’s things were returned, we should have left…”

“Not at all,” Suho interrupted. “You already made the adjustments to stay here for another week. We had no intention of making you leave.” His warm smile was very reassuring.

“Thank you,” Paige replied.

“We should only be gone for about 4 days. It’ll give you some free time without all of our craziness.”

“We’ll miss it,” Paige promised, with a laugh.

“Be careful though, when you’re out. Keep the cell phones charged,” Suho said pointedly.

“Promise,” Paige replied.

“Good.” The leader smiled again and then rose from his chair and disappeared upstairs. It wasn’t late, by any means, but Paige was tired. She knew that Amy and Tao were somewhere enjoying the last chance they had to spend together before they left in the morning. She wasn’t about to nab her friend so instead she excused herself and made her way up the stairs.

“Hey.” Luhan stopped her at the top of the stairs. Paige’s heart leapt into and she wasn’t completely convinced that it was only because of his sudden appearance.

“Yes?” she asked, making eye contact with him.

“Are you already heading to bed?”

“Mmm,” she agreed with a slight nod. “I know it’s early, but I’m tired.”

“You still have a twig or two in your hair,” he said while reaching to a strand just past her ear. Paige blushed, furiously.

“I almost forgot,” she muttered.

His answering smile was bright and she suddenly had the urge to hug him. He was always so perfectly supporting her and helping her whether he knew it or not. She took a step forward and wrapped her arms around him.

Luhan was taken off guard, but not in an unpleasant way. He did, however, scan the 2^nd floor room before allowing his arms to wrap around her, returning the hug.

“Thank you,” Paige murmured against his chest.

“For reminding you that there were twigs in your hair?” Luhan laughed.

Paige pulled back a bit and looked up into his eyes. Again, she felt her heartbeat struggling to keep a normal pace. “That, but more than that. I’m going to miss you.”

“We’re only going for four days,” Luhan responded. Paige took a step back, completely breaking off the hug.

“I know. But then it’s just another couple of days and we leave. I just know it will go by too quickly,” Paige smiled.

“Don’t dwell on it. Besides, you and Amy have things planned for the next few days right?”

“Yes, more things to see in downtown Seoul. We're going to head to the Coex Mall, and maybe some other areas.”

“Good. You’ll have fun,” Luhan smiled.

“You’ll stay in touch, right, after we leave?” Paige asked.

“We aren’t saying our goodbyes right now,” Luhan stated.

“No, I know. I just… when you become famous, touring the world, and have a billion fan girls, I can still talk to you right?”

“As long as you want to talk to me, I’ll be there.” Luhan would never purposefully ignore her. He knew enough of what he was feeling to realize that. However, what she wanted was a best friend, and while he could be that for her, it was going to have to be her choice. “Go, take your shower and get sleep.”

“Alright. Have fun in China,” she smiled warmly at him. After he nodded, Paige turned for her room to grab what she needed for her shower. When she came back out to the hallway, Luhan was gone.

 

---

 

A/N 

I'm going to be shameless right now.... as there are a couple of things I'm going to promote!

1) My Exo fan art has kinda exploded. If you're not already following me on Tumblr... then this is my recent process video for a Kai drawing I just finished: 

2) "Always and Never... with Baekhyun" is almost finished. I've got 1 more chapter to really work on... check it out if you'd like.. it's a short story.

3) My spring break is coming up! I hope that means I can get Stranded and A&N finished. Otherwise, you should still see updates every Friday. :D

 

Thank you for reading.