Strike | Xiuchen

23

Saturday had come and I was holding everything in. I used my inhaler for the first time in a long time.

"It'll be okay, Chen," Lay smiled at me reassuringly.

"Lay-hyung, I want to take pictures with your camera," Sehun took the camera from Lay and took a picture of us. In the picture, I was using my inhaler and Lay was glaring at Sehun.

"Take pictures of Xiumin-hyung and Suho-hyung, not us!"

"Shh," Baekhyun slapped Lay's shoulder, "It's starting!"

"Oh no, I'm going to cry," Lay covered his mouth.

"Look, my parents actually came," I pointed out, "I knew they would."

When Xiumin and Suho walked by together we were all shouting and cheering (and crying). I had to admit, I would kind of miss my brother too, so I cheered for him too.

"Graduation ceremonies are so boring!" Chonglin complained, "I'm ready to go party."

"Who invited you?" Sehun rolled his eyes.

"Lay did."

"Lay-hyung, why did you invite him?"

"Shut up!" Lay smacked Sehun and Chonglin's heads.

When it was over we all smothered Suho and Xiumin in hugs and congratulations. I even hugged Jongdeok.

"I can't believe your dumb ass actually graduated."

"Me neither, little brother," Jongdeok laughed, "Go have fun with your friends."

All of us walked to Suho's house together.

"I really want to skip but I can't," Xiumin laughed.

"Are you that happy?"

"Of course I am," He kissed my cheek a few too many times.

I giggled, "Stop it, you're embarrassing, hyung."

"You can call me Xiumin."

"Really?!" I jumped up and down.

"Not if you do that."

"I love you, Xiumin," I giggled again, "I don't know if I like calling you that."

"You better get used to it," He smiled, "I love you too."

"You guys are seriously gross," Sehun sneered.

"Shut your mouth," Xiumin narrowed his eyes and mocked Sehun again, "I'm so sorry I fell on you, Luhan-ge! Want me to kiss it better?"

"Shut up!" Sehun's face flushed.

Xiumin pulled him into a hug, "I'll miss you, brat."

"You're hurting me!"

I laughed, I'd never really seen Xiumin so happy and affectionate.

"Who wants cake?" Lay came out of the house with cake, which ended up all over most of us.

That night, Xiumin and I stayed in the tent again. We looked through the polaroids from Lay with our legs intertwined. I was feeling a little sad because my parents had taken back Jongdeok, but not me.

"Hey, cheer up. It's supposed to be a good night."

"Sorry."

"Let's climb the tree, that will make you feel better," He unzipped the tent.

"We're in our underwear, and you're in a walking boot."

"Who cares? It's my graduation night and I don't care about anyone else in this town but you and me."

We climbed as far as we could, luckily, it was a warm night. I had a nice view of the stars and my boyfriend. We stared at each other without saying anything for a long time, and I was okay with that.

"You know I love you, right, Kim Minseok?"

He leaned his head back on the tree trunk, his voice was soft, "What do you love about me?"

"If I told you everything the tree would grow around us by the time I was done," I smiled although we were back to back now against the tree trunk now, "I like the days when you're so happy that you don't give a damn about anything, but I don't mind being there when you're not so happy. I love your smile. I love it when you stroke my hair when I'm upset. I love that you make me feel safe. I still get butterflies every time I see you," I stifled a laugh, "I'm glad you don't beat me up when I look at you anymore. What do you love about me?"

"Everything."

"C'mon, Xiumin. I just told you things I love about you."

"Okay, okay," He laughed softly, "I love that you try so hard to make me proud, but I'm always the proudest when you're not trying. I love that you climbed down a well to save a kitten, just to make me happy. You'd do anything to make me happy and I really appreciate that. I love that you still get shy around me. I don't know, I just love you, Chen."

"Thanks."

"Can we get down now? My ass hurts."

I threw my head back in laughter, "Now you know how it feels."

"Shut up. I'm sure your ass hurts way more than this when I'm done with you."

"You're kind of funny sometimes."

"I'm always funny."

"No, you aren't."

"You're a jerk."

"Stop mocking me," I jumped down from the tree once I was low enough,"Don't jump down you'll hurt your ankle."

He did jump down anyways, and landed right on top of me, "I didn't hurt my ankle."

I pinched his nipple, "Yeah, but you hurt me."

He kissed me, "Is that better?"

I pushed him off of me and crawled into the tent, he followed me in and held me from behind. This is how we spent a majority of our summer nights, that and getting drunk and/or having sex. We were determined to make these last few months together the best and we did.

When fall came, my height surpassed Xiumin's and my parents let me back in the house once he left for college. As if that would stop us. Nothing could ever stop the love that we shared. I got letters from him quite frequently, but I kept them in a shoe box in a knot in our tree and I sent letters back from his own address.

I got to see Xiumin over Christmas break, he even brought me back gifts from Seoul. When Suho came home, he sang for all of our team.

Sehun and Luhan did end up together as we all predicted. I would tell him to shut up anytime he complained about the distance between them.

In the spring we were fortunate to get two new players on our team, Yifan, and Tao. Over spring break I found a note on my window.

Chen,
Meet me on the field tomorrow morning. Seven AM.
-X

I smiled. My Xiumin and I, we were eternal. There was nothing that could strike us out.

The End

(A/N: Hey, its Shayne! Thank you to everyone who read this story and voted. I can't believe I got 1k reads, it makes me very happy. Thank you so much. I really enjoy reading all of your comments, a lot of them are actually hilarious. Anyways, author's notes are stupid and nobody even reads them. Bye bye, thanks for reading. Btw, I'm sad it's over. :( )