no regrets 。taekai 。

xii

"is that our CEO?"

"i'm so ashamed, look at what he's wearing!"

jongin stood outside of the building in khaki shorts, sandals, a very red haiwaiian shirt and to hide his very obvious and pigmented eye bags he sported stolen sunglasses from one of his members.

everyone around him- staff, other group members and everyone in between were all outside in similar clothing as that of jongin's, gossiping and mainly quietly making fun of their CEO lee soo man who was in a ridiculously short khaki shorts and a snake printed polo shirt to accompany it.

everyone was there- everyone but the rest of jongin's bandmates.

"where are these dumbasses." the latter sighed and placed his single duffle bag on the floor, grabbing his phone from his back pocket and proceeding to try to reach anyone of the boys.

after a few failed attempts jongin just gave up and tried to find a familiar face in between all of the crowd that was getting bigger by the minute as 6:30AM, the actual time they were all supposed to be here, approached.

in that swarm of people, miraculously jongin spotted minho with his very fashionable- and expensive, beach outfit carrying his equally as expensive gucci carry on.

"minho!" jongin called and the boy immediately snapped his head to jongin's voice. his cool and collected expression disappeared as a very big smile took over and he started running to meet jongin in a more secluded place the latter had found while trying to get away from the lots of people crowding in the fairly small back door of SM entertainment.

minho finally reached jongin and pulled him into a bone crushing bear hug.

"god! it has been ages since i've saw you! i couldn't even say congratulations after you guys won that award!" minho enthusiastically rumbled.

"hyung, it's only been threeweeks-"

"three weeks too long you mean." minho pulled jongin to the closest bench he could find.

"tell me everything. i saw those fan-cams mister! i didn't know you were close with taemin, only recently he started mentioning you when we talk."

he mentions me?, jongin thought.

"i don't know if we're close- i mean, i guess considering the amount of time we've known each other i'd say we're good friends." the younger scratched the back of his neck.

"nonsense, you even met his sister. he's super protective over his sister, he didn't let us meet her for a whole year and a half." minho nodded looking at his hands to count the number of months.

"i didn't thin-"

"hello bitches!" a very loud and uneven voice shouted from the back entrance of the company. "guess who's arrived!"

chanyeol, followed by all the rest of the members who were dressing too similarly to jongin, made his way towards jongin and minho.

"hey jongin! hi hyung." he did a very over exaggerated 90° degree bow to minho.

"we were almost late because this clown over here wanted to pick everyone up but took the longest out of all of us combined to get ready." minseok shoved chanyeol's head and smiled over to jongin.

"wait, why wasn't i included?" jongin pouted and frowned at his friends.

fake friends, his petty brain corrected.

"you live at a walking distance of the company and junmyeon and jongdae slept over their friend's house yesterday so i had to pick them up so far away. i would've loved to have picked you up but-"

"but this lazy piece of shit can't even drive for thirty minutes before handing over wheel. it got junmyeon stressed." yixing interrupted.

chanyeol gave a sheepish smile over to junmyeon who donned an annoyed look on his face.

"you guys are so funny." minho gave a little laugh before turning away and looking at his bandmates who were missing taemin and trying desperately to reach him, "unfortunately while living together we basically hated each others guts, but now we love each other as much as a mother loves her child."

when taemin finally arrived fashionably late kibum enveloped him in a hug and then pulled away to 'gently' slap his face only to pull him back into a hug.

"see motherly love." minho smiled and went over to his group to greet taemin.

"they love hugs don't they?" jongin heard kyungsoo ask while giving his luggage to one of the staffs who were putting the bags away in the buses.

"yup, they must." jongin answered, feeling the fleeting pain on his back of minho's previous hug.

"what are we doing here anyway?l junmyeon fanned himself in attempt to cool his very red face.

"i don't know, maybe they want to take us on a trip or something." minseok scanned the crowd and scrunched his nose, "i guess everyone received the same email. i actually hate seeing everyone in almost identical clothes, the 'must wear any type of hawaiian shirt' did seem pretty specific."

just as shinee approached exo and taemin and jongin exchanged a little smile, a loud static noise almost deafened everyone.

"hello! i'm sorry about that! i'm not used to these wireless portable microphone thingies." soo man said, standing on top of a black platform that was stationed in front of their buses.

"anyway! you must all be wondering why i gathered you all here at such hour in the morning, well i've seen you've all been working hard so i decided to give you all a trip to the beach," quiet cheerful noises were heard in the crowd of people.

"to busan!" everyone started cheering loudly and forming into groups as the CEO instructed them to.

"i guess that answers your question junmyeon, we're going to busan." jongdae said.

but even as they were all lining up to get in one of the buses, jongin couldn't quite pay attention at what his friends were saying.

all he could seem to focus one was the big glittering eyes of taemin when their boss said the word 'trip', wondering if he would ever see that excited expression on taemin again.