Idol Lifestyles

This is exactly where you wanted to be. You and Chan both knew that your idol lifestyles would affect how much time you could spend together, but in the first two years of your relationship you had been lucky, and your schedules had remained relatively spread out.

This time however, your luck had seemingly run out. While you were promoting your new comeback, your days were full of variety shows, performances and fan-meets. Schedules like these were not unusual for you, but when you came home at the end of a long day and couldn’t fall directly into your boyfriend’s arms, it was hard to feel fully recharged.

To make your Chan withdrawals worse, as soon as your promotions ended, Stray Kids’ tour began. So, while you finally had the time to catch up on your beauty sleep, it still felt like you spent endless sleepless nights wishing that he was at home with you.

But finally, after weeks of texting, facetiming and pining, you had him just where you wanted him. Lying on your couch with your head on his chest and your legs intertwined, pretending to watch a movie together. In reality, what you were doing was making up for every minute you’d spent apart. Lazily tracing patterns on his black t-shirt and trying to keep your eyes open while he plays with your hair in that oh-so-soothing way. You catch yourself on the verge of sleep when he breaks the perfect quiet in the room.

“Did I mention that I missed you?” His voice is soft and you can feel it against your cheek as you lay on his chest. You turn your head to look at him, his tired eyes and gentle smile that you can’t help but return.

“Once or twice,” you whisper, “its understandable though, I would miss me too.”

Chan giggles softly, pushing some hair away from your face, and then tenderly twirling some strands between his fingers.

“This is the part where you tell me how much you missed me too.” His tone is slightly sassy now, raising an eyebrow at you as he speaks, but he can’t hide the grin on his face. While you could try to tell him how pathetic and sulky you were in the months that he was gone, you decide it would be easier to show him instead.

Pushing yourself up slightly to press a sweet peck to his lips, you can both feel the way that you’re smiling like idiots. Though you try to pull away, he brings you right back to him for another kiss and holds you against him. In the moment you think that you could stay there forever.

When you finally do separate, you can see the twinkle in his eyes in the lamplit room. Chan’s thumb lightly strokes the side of your face – he loves to touch you, he’s told you in his actions. Holding hands, pressing his to the small of your back in a crowd – when he’s feeling daring at events he’ll try to get as close to you as he can without causing a scandal. Once at a music show he grazed his arm against yours on stage, but after some fan squabbling and some company warnings he took more caution.

“So now that we both have open schedules, what are you going to do with your freedom?”

“I was actually thinking about getting a second job, wouldn’t want to be sitting around here doing nothing.” He playfully pinches your side at that comment, giggling when you squeak, “Or maybe I could see what my boyfriend is planning?”

“Well,” he purses his lips as he feigns deep thought, “I was thinking about locking the door to the apartment for a week and keeping you in here with me.”

“I could be open to that.” Chan knows that you mean it, you beam up at him as you imagine the bliss of finally getting to have him all to yourself again. His smile falters at the corners just slightly before he speaks again.

“And then I was thinking,” he pauses, eyes scanning your face, “and you don’t need to say yes, but…What if we went to Sydney?”

“Like, both of us?” This gets a real laugh out of him, and he has to take a minute before he responds.

A year ago, Chan had introduced you to Hannah when she’d visited Seoul and the two of you had hit it off, so the idea of seeing her again is a nice one. While you’ve never met his parents in person, you had spoken to both of them on occasional video calls throughout your relationship. So it wasn’t meeting the family that was making you hesitate.

All it would take is one video, or a photo, or even just word of mouth. If any fans saw the two of you together it could cause a scandal that would affect not only the two of you, but both of your groups as well. The two of you were well aware of previous idol dating scandals, and you had agreed to keep as low-key as you could for as long as possible. You could imagine the news of your relationship breaking; Stray Kids Leader Bang Chan brings Secret Idol Girlfriend to Meet The Folks.

You have to admit that potential impact on your own career scares you. You love your job truly, and you couldn’t imagine doing anything else. But you think that what really scares you is how it would affect everyone else – your members, your company, and most of all Chan. And, knowing him, you’re pretty sure that Chan’s concerns mirror yours. He would never want to do anything to risk your reputation, or his own members. He’s also well aware that you would receive far more backlash than him, knowing how the press likes to treat female idols.

“Well, yeah. Hopefully you would be coming with me,” Your thoughts must be displayed on your forehead in flashing lights, you think, as he is always somehow able to easily read your mind, “We would be careful. Even more careful than we are in Seoul. Masks, hats, glasses - hell I’ll wear a Halloween costume if it means that we can stay private.”

He seems more awake than before, and you can tell by how fast he’s talking that he’s been thinking about this conversation for a while.

“We’ll stay with my family, and I can show you where I grew up! I’ll take you to the beach, and to all of the hidden spots away from the tourists,” He shakes his head slightly with a smile, “My mum has been dying to actually meet you so you might get interrogated by her, and Hannah won’t stop talking about you. She says she wants your help with some songs she’s working on.”

“Shouldn’t she go to you for that?”

He lets out a huff and grumbles in response, “You don’t think I’ve tried to help her? Apparently its not cool to get music advice from your professional musician brother.” You giggle at his sullen expression, before thinking back to the matter at hand.

“I mean, it’s just,” You push yourself up on his chest to have a better look at his face, “It’s risky. We could get seen at the airport, or in the city.”. His brow furrows slightly as he listens to you speak, taking in every word that you’re saying.

“But if we were careful - really careful - just for a week or two, would you want to go?”

Looking down at his nervous expression, you grin as you whisper.

“Yeah. Yeah, I really would.” His dimples seem to light up the dark room, or maybe its his smile. Chan gently turns so that you're lying beside him, at the perfect height for him to press a kiss to the top of your head and then mumble into you hair.

“Okay, so we're going to Sydney?”

“Yeah, Sydney.”

You can’t tell if hours or minutes go by, but then again you don’t particularly care. As you lie there listening to Chan tell you about every place he wants to show you, his face lights up in a way that you haven’t seen in a while. After spending a few months on tour, he has worked himself to the bone. On top of that, it’s been too long since he’s seen his family, and while he may be good at acting like it doesn’t affect him you can tell that he needs this visit home.
You feel your eyelids start to droop as you slowly drift off, and before you slip away you mumble under your breath.

“Chan?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m definitely gonna be Berry’s favourite.”