Collateral Love | Tao

Chapter 33

"Be safe and call me if anything happens," My mom repeated for probably the thousandth time. 

"Okay, I get it. I need to get through security before my class leaves without me."

"I love you. Have so much fun!"

"Love you too," I hugged her goodbye and got through security as quickly as I could.

"We're in the last boarding group," Sehun said.

"What's your seat number?"

"O-6"

"My seat is N-5, that means I have a middle seat," I groaned. I hated middle seats, yet I always ended up with one.

I asked my classmates what their seat numbers were, but nobody was next to me.

"Maybe one of the college students is next to you," Sehun said, "Maybe you'll meet a nice college boy." Speaking of college students, Minseok was there.

Tao looked up from his phone, only for a second, to glare at Sehun.

"I'm not really interested in that."

The flight attendant called up our boarding group. I noticed a familiar man wearing sunglasses.

"Kris-"

"Shh," He sushed me.

I was having trouble lifting my suitcase into the overhead compartment. Somebody lifted it for me, "I thought you were tough, Jisoo."

"I am tough."

He sat down by the window seat in my row.

"Why are you in this row?"

"My boarding pass says N-6."

I looked for somebody who might switch seats with me. I was pushed down into my seat and trapped in by Kris.

"And you're N-4?"

"Yep."

"This is going to be a long flight," I sighed. 

"Not really. It's only an hour and a half," Tao said sarcastically.

"Next to you, it'll be eons," I rolled my eyes.

"Whatever, princess."

"Don't call me that."

"Princess."

"Shut up. I'll kill you."

"Be quiet," Sehun whined from behind us, kicking my seat, "I can't stand you two bickering for the entire trip."

"You guys act like a married couple," Jongin was beside him.

"Leave me alone."

I took my headphones out of my backpack as an attempt to ignore Tao and Kris.

Tao graded stuff on his computer for a while before deciding to bother me. He wrote "Hi" on a sticky note and stuck it to my leg. I removed it from my leg and stuck it to his leg. I looked across the aisle. Yixing was sitting in the aisle seat, Junmyeon was sitting in the middle, and Yeri was at the window. The sticky note was stuck back to my leg with "I miss you" written on it. I stared at it for a moment. I missed him too.

"I think it'd be exciting to have sex on a plane," I heard Jongin say behind me, Sehun giggling in response.

"Stop being gross," Jongdae was clearly suffering, as was I.

Tao reached back and thumped both of their foreheads, "Don't make me separate you two."

"Don't be mad because you're still a virgin and we're not, Huang," Jongin snickered.

I turned the music up on my phone and brought the lap table down to write a message back to Tao.

Me: Gross, can you believe them? Not sure why Sehun likes him so much.

Tao: Me neither. I'm not sure why you hate me so much either.

Me: Because you lied to me

Tao: It was just to keep you safe. I still love you, you know?

Me: Alright, do you have any other secrets?

Tao: No. I got you a Christmas gift. And a Valentine's day gift. And we'll have to celebrate yours and Sehun's birthday while we're here.

Me: Why did you get me so many gifts? We broke up in November.

Tao: Because I still love you. Would you like your gifts?

Me: you don't have to buy me gifts.

I watched as he opened his bag. He took out a box and opened it to show me a Pandora bracelet with a lonely polar bear charm on it. He fitted it to my wrist.

Tao: This was for Christmas.

Me: Thank you.

He took a charm out of another box. It read "I love you to the moon and back." I felt myself smile. He added it to the bracelet.

Tao: this one was for Valentine's day. You're smiling, you must like it.

Me: I do, I love it.

Tao: I'm glad. What have you been up to?

Me: Just school

Tao: Me too

Me: Really? No crazy FBI stuff?

Tao: Really.

Me: So are you done with all that stuff?

Tao: I think I am. I'm broke, but I like things better this way.

Me: it's okay if you're broke

I put my blanket over my lap and took a nap until the plane landed harshly.

Tao took my suitcase down for me. I felt embarrassed about having him go out of his way to help me. I silently prayed that nobody noticed his kind gestures.

China didn't seem hugely different from Korea, minus the fact that there were way more people. I texted my mom and let her know that we had arrived safe and sound.  Tao barked some instructions and orders at us.

We went to the hotel to check in before the excitement started. Mine and Yeri's hotel room was right across the hall from Tao's. This would be interesting.

"How was your flight?" Yeri asked.

"It was okay. How was it for you?"

"Good. I got to sit by that hot professor and the hot college student. Do you think they're together? They seem kind of close."

"I'm not sure."

"If they're not, I want to ask the college boy out."

"His name is Yixing. He works for my mom."

"Oh, okay. You should talk to him for me."

"Yeah, I can," I would probably just tell Yixing to let her down easy. 

It was late now and the only exciting thing we were doing tonight was going to a buffet. 

Sehun held Jongin's hand as we walked to the restaurant, "We should get married while we're here."

"That isn't on the itinerary," Tao joked. 

"Well, we can't get married in Korea because my parents don't know I'm gay."

"Maybe you should tell them. They probably won't be angry with you."

"Well, what would your parents think if they knew you were dating your student?" Sehun retorted quietly.

"That's different," Tao moved away from Sehun to avoid the danger of being exposed to even more of his students.