ˏˋ°•*⁀ ➷ 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗥𝗧𝗬-𝗧𝗛𝗥𝗘𝗘
─◌✰್ 𝗁𝖺𝗒
𝗵𝗮𝘆 (𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻) /𝗵𝗮̄/
❝𝗀𝗋𝖺𝗌𝗌 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝗁𝖺𝗌 𝖻𝖾𝖾𝗇 𝗆𝗈𝗐𝗇 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖽𝗋𝗂𝖾𝖽 𝖿𝗈𝗋 𝗎𝗌𝖾 𝖺𝗌 𝖿𝗈𝖽𝖽𝖾𝗋．❞

The ride to the airport was extremely loud, both in your head and in the car.

You sat in the passenger's seat, staring out the window, watching the island of Jeju whip by as fast as the wind whipped the trees outside. The sky, which had been clear and sunny mere hours earlier, had turned an roiling gray, putrid clouds blanketing the world in cold. The car rocked back and forth, but you could barely feel it. You couldn't feel much of anything at the moment.

Your music was on at full blast, so loud it vibrated the entire car. It was the only way you could think, as backwards as that sounded.

Were you making the right decision in leaving the island before everyone else? More importantly, were you doing the right thing not telling Felix?

It wasn't as if you had tried to keep your leaving from him a secret. As bad as it sounded, while you got dressed, packed, and purchased last-minute plane tickets for Seoul, you hadn't thought about him. Youd been so filled with panic, so freaked out about the impending storm, you hadn't been able to think about anything else.

"Can I finally turn this shit off now?" Minho tried to yell over the music, but you could barely hear him.

After a few seconds, he shrugged and shut the radio off himself.

Even as the sudden silence filled the car, your mind whirred with thoughts.

It felt wrong to leave Felix like this.

You should have called, or at the very least, texted, before you took off. You had convinced yourself that he would be annoyed with you for calling him just to tell him where you were going. You didn't want to bother him. He didn't need to know your every move, right?

But it had only been one day since you guys decided to take some time away from each other. That didn't mean you were broken up. He should want to know where you were.

But if you were being honest with yourself, it sort of felt like you were no longer together. And as little as you wanted to admit it, that's where your mindset had been for the past day and a half. Even though Felix just wanted to take some time to think about your relationship, it had hurt your feelings more than you initially thought. You'd tried to put on a brave face, but serious conversation had felt like a breakup, and you had unconsciously been distancing yourself in more ways than one.

But that was your own fault. You should call him, just to let him know where you were, where your head was at. Even if you guys were taking a bit of time to think about your relationship, he still cared about you. You shouldn't be shutting him out.

You reached for your phone, which had sat in your pocket for the last half hour you'd been in the car.

Without even glancing at you, Minho said, "he already knows."

You paused, turning to face him, half confused, half surprised. "Who?"

Minho rolled his eyes. "You know who. He apparently called right when we left. Then Jeongin called to tell me Felix was worried about you. He knows we're going to the airport."

You nodded slowly. "A-and what did he say?"

Minho shrugged. "I'm not sure. Jeongin didn't give me any information."

You sighed, slumping in your chair. "Right."

After a pause, Minho added, "he cares about you. Even if he's being an idiot right now, he does."

You gave him a small smile. "He's not being an idiot. And I know."

The two of you lapsed back into silence. And while you felt less awful about your choice to leave the island, you felt worse about leaving Felix.

You wanted to be with him.

And even though the mere thought of the hurricane, which was going to hit in the next two days, still sent you into full-body chills, you felt like being with Felix just might help, even a little.

But you weren't sure if he would want to be with you.

Just because he was worried about you didn't mean he was confident enough in your relationship to do anything about it. And you weren't the kind of person to force a guy to be with you. All of Hyunjin's friends cared about you. That didn't mean they wanted to be in a relationship with you.

If Felix decided he did want to be with you, you wanted to see him make it happen. You weren't sure how he would do that, but if he wanted to, he would. Or that's what your friends had told you, anyway.

"You know, if Felix hadn't been such a stubborn ass, my plan would have worked," Minho said as he turned onto another highway.

You frowned. "What plan?"

He shrugged, shifting so one hand was on the wheel, the other against the open car window.

"Oh c'mon, you can't say something like that and then leave me hanging!" You whined, nudging him with your elbow.

"Just the plan to get you and Lix together," he said nonchalantly. But you could see the edges of his mouth twitch just slightly. He was trying not to laugh.

"What do you mean??" You demanded, turning around again so you faced him completely.

Minho still didn't look at you. "Well, Lix wasn't about to make a move, you know he never does, so I just gave him an extra push. You know, to go for it. Actually, you should be thanking me."

"You didn't do anything," you scoffed.

"So you think Lix bagged you all by himself?"

You paused. "He's really good at flirting, you know."

"I don't want to know," Minho wrinkled his nose. "But for real, if I hadn't flirted with you earlier on in the trip, do you really think he would have had the courage to ask you out? He was jealous, Laska."

"So you never liked me in the first place?" You said as you tried to figure out what he was saying. "All that was a lie? That's kind of mean, Minho."

"No, I did like you," Minho paused to collect his thoughts. "I think you're funny, and fun to be around. And you're not completely horrible on the eyes. But I don't want to date you, no offense. I mostly said the things I did to make Lix feel like he needed to ask you out."

"It was kind of weird that you were flirting with me to obviously," you agreed. "But you really don't think Felix would have made a move on me if you hadn't played up how much you liked me?"

"It would have taken him a lot longer," Minho responded. "You know how he is, he doesn't want to disrespect anyone or make them uncomfortable. Especially because he cares about you."

"By the way," you interrupted, "how did you even know he liked me, way back then? Even I didn't know that."

Minho scoffed. "He's always super obvious with his feelings. You both are, actually. You couldn't stop staring at each other. His eyes were basically bugging out of his head the entire drive from the airport. It was like he'd never seen a pretty girl before. And you were just watching him and blushing like an idiot, laughing at his bad jokes. It was kind of painful to watch."

You rolled your eyes, hitting him on the arm. "That's so not true," you protested, but you didn't mind. Minho was right. Clearly, he'd been right from the beginning. Who could have saw that coming?

You were about to go back to looking out the window, when your phone buzzed.

Looking down you saw it was a text from Renee.

miss smartypants
LASKA

I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU

omg what???

gossip?? gimme!!

miss smartypants
so you know seungmin??

whaaat no

who's this seungmin u speak of?

miss smartypants
:/ stop

TELL ME

miss smartypants
well

he asked me on a date!!

he wants to take me to pick

oranges at the famous jeju trees!

i love oranges and orange juice!

OMGG???

how did he ask you??

tell me everything rn

miss smartypants
well, it was sort of weird actually

that's very seungmin

he asked me right after dinner

everyone was hanging out, and
seungmin started complaining about
not having a date.

then han dared him to ask out the prettiest
girl at the table, if he was so lonely.

so he literally just said
"ren, we should go on a date!
why haven't we gone on a date yet?"

and i didn't know what to say so he said
let's go to the jeju orange trees tomorrow!

and han said he should get credit for
our relationship if we get married

now everyone is going to the
orange trees tomorrow!

and omg i'm literally shaking, i just
told the girls but i had to text u

thank u for updating me on the tea

holy shit ur dating seungmin!

u know he's been tryna come up
with an excuse to ask u out omg

miss smartypants
we're not like official but
i think jeongin inspired him tbh

they were talking a lot before dinner

maybe u should thank him haha

miss smartypants

omg ur so right!

shoutout jeongin

anyway, ill see u again sometime, right?
i'd miss u too much if we never hung out
after this 😔

literally ofc, u should stay
with jinnie and me if u ever
come to seoul!

miss smartypants
omg yes, if i can steal ur clothes hehe

this is robin on renee's phone and i
second that notion, gimme ur gray
sweatpants right now

ily, and ofc (;

and robin, stay away from my sweatpants

You smiled, putting your phone back in your pocket. All of your friends were getting their happy endings, just in time for the end of the trip. While you weren't so sure about your own happy ending, you were excited for them.

You sighed, beginning to turn and gaze out the window some more. Your heart felt uncharacteristically heavy, and you knew you weren't very good at hiding your emotions.

Suddenly, Minho asked, "You wanna put on some music, or what?"

You hid a smile from him, before nodding and switching the radio back on. It was still connected to your phone, so the aggressively loud music instantly started from where it left off.

Minho sighed, shaking his head as he pulled onto the final stretch towards the airport.

"You're gonna be deaf by thirty!" He yelled, eyeing you with incredulity.

You didn't say anything. You just leaned over and rested your head on his arm, closing your eyes as the beat drowned out all other thoughts.

And for once, he didn't move away.

Just knowing Minho, along with all of your friends, new and old, cared about you so much, gave you just the smallest sliver of hope. Hope that everything might work out in the end, with or without Felix.

But was it too much to hope that he might want to be there too?

laska's note —
awww a cute minlaska moment! their dynamic is so cute, even if they don't end up together 🥰 ofc minho knew this all along, makes me wonder what else he got up his sleeve hahah. lemme know what u think it's gonna happen! lix is running to meet laska, we hope he makes it in time 😉
also, i apologize if u get random notifs that i updated this fic. i am going through and editing even more to make sure everything's perfect before my next fic! u can use it as a chance to go back and reread before the next book in the series starts hehe.

question of the day —
what are some of your hobbies outside of wattpad? i'd love to learn more about my readers!

my answer —
crocheting, photocard collecting, shopping, fashion, makeup, writing and reading, listening to music, playing on my switch, and spending time with my bf and friends!

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