Second Arrangement

CHAPTER 38 - SCRUTINY

ELLIE

By law, every good thing has come to an end, including our honeymoon. After convincing Jackson that it was such a waste to go back on a private plane, Jackson finally yielded to my pleading and booked us on a commercial flight. Even though he insisted on business class, at least he agreed to fly commercially again. He said he was worried since this time, he had announced our marriage publicly. While he was sure that his fans would accept me, he wasn't sure about anyone else. At first, I didn't get why he was so worried. I might be worried the first time because we did it in secret, so sometimes I worried that the secret might leak. But this time, it was out in the open. Plus, it wasn't like he was giving my identity to the whole world, so I assured him that we would be fine. Nothing would happen to us.

But, the moment the car drove into the airport area, I had to take back my words. Even from a distance, I could see vans lining up near the drop off points. And there were reporters, setting up their equipment, just across the drop off points. From their position, they could take pictures of anyone who got off at the drop off points. How they managed to find out about our schedule was beyond my mind. I didn't realize I was still staring at the window, looking outside toward the crowd in front of the drop off point when Jackson squeezed my shoulder gently.

"Hey," he looked concerned. "Do you think you can handle that?" he pointed toward the press as this would be my first encounter with the press, with him by my side. Frontally.

At this point, my nerves started to get me. I shook my head, "I'm not sure..."

He gave me a small smile, "Don't worry. I'll be by your side the whole time. There'll be bodyguards as well so you don't need to worry. Just look down and keep walking. Put on your sunglasses all the time and don't say anything. No matter how tempting it sounds," he assured me and I nodded.

I took another deep breath and then I gave him a small nod. His manager hopped out of the car and jogged around to open the door on Jackson's side. Jackson got off the car first before turning around to extend his hand to me and I accepted it. The moment we started walking toward the entrance, the press started to swarm around us and all the bodyguards formed a human wall, shielding us from the press and the fans. I thought I had a rough idea about what he was going through every time they swarmed him at the airport, but I was wrong. Yeah sure I was right about the amount of people that were there at the airport, but I didn't count on the noise.

They were practically screaming into my ears. And it was so loud that I could barely hear what Jackson was saying to my ear. It was a wonder that Jackson didn't suffer hearing loss from being screamed at for years. There was always someone screaming Jackson's name, asking him to look at them and striked a pose. But Jackson only waved at them politely without stopping because it would cause a jam in the airport if he stopped. And the camera flashes that pointed toward us were blinding and disturbing. No wonder he always wore his sunglasses at the airports. I was seeing stars even after they had stopped using the flash on us. I almost got lost if not for Jackson tugging my elbow so I went in the right direction because I could barely see where I was going. All in all, we managed to reach the check-in desk in one piece and Jackson made his last turn toward the fans, waving and shouting to them, thanking them and wishing them to go back safely.

JACKSON

I could see that Ellie was uncomfortable with the amount of press and fans waiting for us in front of the airport. I asked her a couple times to make sure that she really wanted to go through the front door and she did. I assured her that I would always be by her side and thankfully, the bodyguards did their job wonderfully. They made a solid barrier between us and the press and fans and no one managed to penetrate the barrier. Luckily there weren't that many sasaeng fans following me anymore, maybe because I was old news, so it wasn't that hard to keep them at bay. I was glad that Ellie obeyed me and kept her sunglasses on the whole time. I could see that despite the sunglasses covering her eyes, she kept blinking when the flashes became too bright for her.