**just a teeny weeny part with some ual advances--but DEFINITELY DOES NOT GO ALL THE WAY! (spoiler? prob? idk)

It takes some time until everything goes back to normal. Normal as in, everything like before, except now Baekhyun and Soojin are over. Fortunately, they were able to work it out to be acquaintances, not yet friends.

At first, Aerin avoided any and all interaction with Baekhyun, but they eventually got over it. By the time they talked to each other again, which was a little over a week, the whole situation had already simmered out. They went back to talking like how they usually would, as if it never even happened.

Watching this entire ordeal was something the boys never experienced before. Suho wanted nothing more than to have them all together again. Sehun, on the other hand, didn’t think it was a big deal--so what if Baekhyun thought another girl was prettier than his own girlfriend? Sehun thought that was normal. But that wasn’t too surprising, coming from the youngest of the bunch.

The situation made a difference in Chanyeol and Aerin’s relationship too, although Aerin tried her absolute best to conceal it.

Like one time, about a week after the instance, they went on a picnic date. They had run out of things to talk about so quickly, that they had to Google what couples talk about on dates.

And another time when Baekhyun accidentally walked into them watching a movie in the living room, Aerin got so uncomfortable at the sight of him that she zoomed out the door right when he walked in.

Aerin recognized it, but she wanted to make them work.

“Chanyeol,” Aerin says out loud while they’re lying on his bed together. “Can we have like a getaway?”

“A getaway? Sure, why don’t I call up my assistant to book us a trip, and my yacht driver to clear his weekend.” Chanyeol jokes.

“It doesn’t have to be all fancy shmancy. I just think it will be good for us to get away from a bit.”

“Good for us?” Chanyeol asks.

“Yeah… I just want us to be closer.” Aerin answers. Like how it was before, she thinks, but doesn’t dare say that out loud. She would be in denial if she were to say they had the same spark as they did before. The butterflies she would get each time he complimented her, each time he inched closer to her… she missed that feeling. And she was so disappointed in herself that she had lost it. “What if we took a trip to Jeju-do? This weekend? Flight prices can’t be that bad right now.”

“You want to fly to the beach this weekend,” Chanyeol clarifies. “Really?”

“Really, I’m not kidding. Come on, we’ve finished our big exams, all we need to worry about is finals--and that’s in a month from now. It’s not like we had plans otherwise.”

“We can’t go to the beach, Aerin. Jeju’s too far,” he replies. “I’m sorry.”

Aerin nods her head, but the facial expression on her face is one that’s clearly disappointed.

“How about escaping to Myeong-dong? We can get a hotel room for the night, if that makes us feel like we’re far from home,” Chanyeol proposes.

“That’s a great idea.” Aerin’s eyes light up. “We haven’t done anything like that before--like walk around the night market or shop around.”

“Yeah, we haven’t. It’s a date.”

Aerin and Chanyeol packed heavily for their weekend trip. Seoul National University was no more than a 30 minute drive away, but they wanted to really have the feeling of a true getaway. So, they went all in.

The two place their luggage into Chanyeol’s car, and Chanyeol even does the roadtrip-thing of patting the trunk once he closed it. “To Myeong-dong!”

“To Myeong-dong,” Aerin laughs. She then turns around to bid her friends goodbye, who are going along with the act.

“Have fun, kids!” Suho waves, “We’ll miss you so much. Have a safe trip!”

Jongin is the first to crack and says out loud, “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Aerin asked us to, so we’re doing this for her,” Suho sharply corrects him. “Good bye now!”

Aerin giggles and jumps inside the car. “How cute of them to that.”

“Didn’t you make them do that?”

“And what’s your point?”

“Nothing,” Chanyeol chuckles. He looks right to his girlfriend, who’s avidly scrolling through her phone to look up the best street foods to eat. He smiles softly and places