ACT 22

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Rui and Kris reach the house at three in the morning; both were very tired and exhausted. They intentionally plan to go straight home after the show ended but Kye dragged them to the after party to celebrate the success of the show, Kris really wanted to go home but he don't want to leave his wife to take a cab in the middle of the night so he stayed and waited for her. It was a private after party that's why Rui agreed to go, she doesn't want any pictures of her of Kris be taken by the media but before she gave in to her friend's request she insisted or rather demanded that she and Kris should wear mask or anything to cover their face when they walked the runway, Kye knows how her friend values her privacy and now that she's married she's never been more careful keeping it.

"You really didn't have to do that, you could have said no to her" Rui said turning off the ignition. "I'm sorry you had to endure my friends for twelve straight hours, I promise to keep those two crazy girls at bay" she was looking at Kris sleeping figure beside her on the passenger seat. She was dead tired but she missed the thrill and running around backstage during fashion shows. The two of them only need to change twice compared to the other models but since the clothes they are wearing are the focal points of the show it means twice of everything including the hair and make-up, shoes and accessories. Not only that, everything was two times difficult for her because she needed to guide Kris in every part of the show since it’s his first time and she’s the reason why he’s dragged in this mess.

"It's okay, both of them looks nice and Kye seems to be really desperate, though I don't know why she asked me, I'm not even a professional model to begin with" she was surprised when Kris suddenly answered back. Actually losing the models for her finale was never a real problem for Kye, Rui knows that she could always pull out a pair of models from her line up but when Rein told her about Rui they used the opportunity to set up the couple, their post-wedding gift. "And it's the first time we're doing something together as official husband and wife" he added.

Kris felt a proud knowing that a lot of people look up to his wife but he couldn’t help but ashamed to himself that he doesn’t even know a single thing about her. In the last couple of days, he’s thankful that he has his friends and Rui to take his mind off with his break up with Soyou, he can’t imagine what could have happen if he’s alone in his room right now, he would probably sulk and mope around all day.

According to his brother-in-law Rui is a friendly person with but only to a handful of friends, she doesn’t easily open up or talk about her personal affairs that's why seeing his wife interact with all the people last night was a chance for him to see her in a different perspective.

Days have passed and Kris and Soyou's breakup spread throughout campus like wildfire, there were millions of version of how the so-called royal couple broke up but none of them came close to the truth. The bullying did not stop for Rui, girls especially Kris and Luhan's fangirls would constantly pick on her because of the infamous incident where Luhan almost lost his cool and Kris carrying her out of the room. Rein never took her eyes off Rui at school, she was bothered to see her friend be bullied by the entire school population; what enraged her most is that her friend purposely dressed in plain clothes and hide herself behind those thick glasses and pretended to be someone she isn't.

"I can't believe you did not tell us about this!" no more smiling maknaes, Sehun and Kai was furious when they saw a girl pouring juice on Rui, two girls were holding her down; they were late for their afternoon class because they were in the library sleeping.

Kai grab Rui and hid her behind him, he was glaring at the girls. Sehun was about to slap the girl that poured juice but Rui was fast enough to hold his hand down and stop him.

"Sehun stop, you can't hit a girl" she softly said.

"But noona, look at what they did to you" Kai retorted, she sigh and took Sehun and Kai's arm pulling them away but Sehun stopped and look back at the girls.

"If you ever touch her again with your filthy hands, you can say goodbye to you dream of graduating from this university" Sehun hissed. "Tell everyone that if they even try to hurt Chou Rui, they will answer to the two of us directly" the two drag her to an empty restroom and told her to stay inside while they call Rein and ask her to bring clean clothes for her, just minutes after Rein appeared and help her clean up. When they came out, Sehun and Kai were joined by Lay, Luhan and Kris.

The two were upset that their noona kept to herself and did not tell any of them about the continous bullying that was happening to her, even though Rein is with her most of the time, some girls still manage to find her when she was alone or ambush her on the way to her next class.

"I wish it was Luhan hyung who saw you earlier, he would have slap that girl right away" Kai said.

"I'm alright now Kai, there's no need for you guys to hurt anyone" she said and turn to Sehun. "You don't need to make threats like that Sehun, you made those girls cry."

"They deserve even worse noona" Sehun protested, Rui walk towards Kai and Sehun and hug them both.

"Thank you for bailing me out back there. I'm your noona and  yet you're the one taking care of me which should be the other way around" she said and smiled at the two maknaes.

Things improved a little between Kris and Rui, their relationship wasn't that akward compared to how they were before; they can now hold longer conversations without Kris glaring at her or Rui giving him a cold shoulder.

"Hey Rui" he called her before she entered her room, they just got back from dinner with Rein and the others.

"Hmm?"

"Starting tomorrow, you'll have all your classes with us... or atleast one of us" he said.

"Kris, you don't have to do this, it's enough that Sehun threatened to expel anyone who tried to hurt me. I don't want you to disrupt your life just to guard me 24/7" she protested.

"It's too late to object you know" he said almost smiling. "Sehun already took care of everything."

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