Secret || Chanlix

Chapter five.

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All too soon, my two weeks of preparation were over and Stray Kids was on a plane to the United States.

Australia was our next destination, unfortunately, but at least I had a while in the US to enjoy what could possibly be my last days as an idol - or even alive, maybe, if my dad...

Anyway, the American stays were all really nice and all the members, including myself, were really surprised at how many recognised us. We couldn't take photos with them, unfortunately, but we did end up signing some pretty strange things. I also got to draw all over a photocard of Chenle from nct, but hey, the stay asked me to sign it!

Currently, we were going to a beach in NYC. Although it was at least 40°C (104-ish Fahrenheit), I was still wearing a light pink sweater with a purple t-shirt underneath and black ripped jeans. Sure, it might not have been the most appropriate attire for the beach, but I was planning on just playing in the sand all day, maybe.

In the van, I was sitting beside Seungmin and the window. He was chatting to Hyunjin in english so that they could both practise and get better. Occasionally, I'd jump in to help if either were struggling or said something interesting, but for the most part I stayed quiet, gazing out of the glass contentedly.

We stopped at a traffic light and I saw in the car next to us a young girl's eyes light up when she saw me. Her mouth opened and I could only assume she was screaming.

I giggled and pulled a funny face, trying to make her laugh. It worked and the girl started giggling adorably. Times like that made me happy - happy that I could make other people happy.

Seungmin nudged me with a smile, a fond expression on his face. "What are you giggling about?"

I just shook my head with a smile as the light turned green.

--

We got the the beach after another ten or so minutes. The others all scrambled to get out of the van as soon as possible, but I hung back a little. I didn't really like the beach, to be honest.

I used to love going to the Manly and Dee Why beaches in Sydney, surfing the massive waves with my mates and building stupid sand castles, but I slowly began to go less and less frequently as I hit puberty and became more self conscious of my body. I was the only 'girl' in my group and none of the boys were exactly great at hiding their gaping stares when we ran across the sand and did stupid shit in our togs - even a wet-suit couldn't hide my feminine figure.

Plus, I knew all that time in the sun was one of the reasons behind my god-awful freckles, so eventually I just stubbornly refused to go in fear of getting more.

This time though, in New York, I knew I couldn't escape the dreaded beach, especially since we were filming for Stay.

With a small huff, I hauled myself out of the van. The sun instantly blinded me, making me let out a dramatic groan and fling my arm over my eyes. "The sun! Ahh, it burns!" I wailed, making my voice disgustingly high to exaggerate the pain.

Hyunjin quickly came to my rescue, standing in front of me so that his tall-ass self could act as a shield. I let out a contented sigh and patted his back in thanks as I scanned the beach.

It wasn't empty, but it also didn't appear too crowded, luckily. There were a few groups of people and families both in the water and on the sand, as well as a few surfers, but none looked like they were going to bother us.

Maybe I could allow myself to enjoy the day... it had been years since I had last been at a beach, after all, and I could always just wear sunscreen and not go in the water. Plus, no one there knew I had revolting breasts, so they couldn't stare at them and make me uncomfortable.

It could be fun.

I was interrupted from my thoughts by Jeongin shouting "let's go!" and jumping onto Hyunjin's back, thrusting a fist in the air as the taller began Naruto running towards the others.

Grinning at their idiocy, a thought came to my mind. Smirk curling my lips, I wrapped myself around Jisung's shoulder and opened my mouth. "New Yorrkk~" I sung as loudly as possible, "concrete jungle, wet dream, tomaaatoooo~"

"I'm fluent in english, but I still have no clue what he's talking about." Chan told the others when they looked at him in confusion, hoping for a translation of my antics.

Laughing, I flopped onto the sand and rolled around in the fibres that were definitely all through my clothes and shoes.

"I'm not letting you back in the van with all that sand on you, Felix." Our manager hyung sighed when he saw me spit out a mouthful of the golden dirt.

"But hyuunngg," I pouted, standing back up, "Seungmin's sandy too!"

"What? No, I'm n-" Before he could finish his sentence, I shoved Seungmin to the ground and jumped on top of him. We wrestled on the ground for a while, rolling around in the sand until Chan hyung finally pulled us apart.

"Since you're both covered in sand now, we're gonna have to dump you in the ocean to wash off." He smirked, signalling the others to grab us.

I could feel my heart thundering in my chest, but I shoved away the pit of anxiety growing around it as I stuck my tongue out at Chan and struggled in Changbin's thiccc arms. "I'm not wearing my togs, sucka!"

"What the hell are togs?!" Jisung interrupted us, already half naked and wearing flamingo boardies.

"I think the real question is, when did you get changed?" Minho raised an eyebrow at the excited boy, eyes lingering a second too long on his exposed chest before they went down to his bright yellow thongs.

"What do you mean? I've had the shorts under my shorts since we left, so I just had to take off my clothes. That lady over there was not happy when I suddenly started taking my shorts off in front of her perverted little 10 year old, by the way. She said she wanted to talk to my parents, so I told her to talk to either Chan hyung or manager hyung."

--

After a full 20 minutes of convincing, the boys had eventually agreed to let me stay on the sand. I used the excuse that salt water irritated me, which wasn't even a lie since the water would irritate me, just not physically like I had implied, so they had to relent after a while.

I did end up burying Jisung, Chan and Jeongin in the sand, though. They were all unique masterpieces, in case I needed to clarify. I'm not a dumb kid who just digs a hole and sticks their sibling in it, pfft. Jisung was a mermaid, with lovely sand-boobs and wide hips. Jeongin was nothing but a head sticking out of the ground with a wet sand castle floating above his head in an arch shape so that it would stay up and not collapse on his face. He also had a moat, which took forever. And I had stolen one of our staff's lovely bikinis to make Chan into a sexy thing that somehow looked like Gordon Ramsay. Yeah... no clue what happened there.

Over all, it was a pretty fun day, but I did get sunburned and I'm, like, 76% sure that I got three new freckles right beside my eye. That was certainly irritating, but I might have also just been hallucinating their appearance.

I did get a bit jealous of the boys being able to swim and have fun without worrying or sweating through their shirt, but everybody has to make sacrifices, I guess.

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