The Superstar's Autograph
_Chapter Twenty-One

[ Dedicated to you. Loyal reader. I love you.]

:B Please don't sue me for writing this story.

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"Son, what are you still doing here? After an hour your flight to Seoul will head off with or without you. You know, you can't risk that. We have to get Wang Yibo as our company's brand-ambassador or we'll be suppressed alive with our competitors while celebrating with bottles of champagne nattering about our collapsed business." My dad entered the kitchen where I am presently baking. Affirmatively yes, I baked or cooked or eat ice cream and yogurt when I am stress or have something to get off my chest. From the crack of dawn, I started to do what I gotta do, lobbed myself to a momentous event just not to think about that specific person till now.

I pitched him down far my memory and continuously plating my red velvet cake. "Hand me that bowl with cream cheese please..."

The old man picked the said bowl of frosting and held it close by him, enclosing it with his arms. "Where's Yibo? How come he's not here?"

"Dad, that's not a stuffed toy and stop acting like you don't know what happened. I could smell your orange scent last night while Yibo and I were talking about my choices and decisions." Mainly he was also the author of this so-called love story that originated in once upon a time with me the innocent fool fated to be in that epilogue phrase of 'they never live happily ever after'. The End. No sequel or spin-off.

He cross-examined the table and the numerous sugared pastries rested on it. Not touched nor appreciated.

"Sorry. Privacy is not a necessity if it's for my son's happiness in the future. I knew, you loved him so much. He loved you too." A toddler in a full-fledged man debated me. This was chiefly the time that he brawled for my love life. I mean, Zoey's the only lover I got after all and I didn't speak about it but then in Yibo's incident I turned out to be vocal.

The vibration of my counterfeit laugh ricocheted to the walls.

"Xiao Zhan, you heard me. Yibo is always been in the end of your thread. Break through those bricks that you both built for yourselves or maybe there's nothing in between that pulls you two apart, it's only in your head. Walk around the borderline, take all the pain and heartache, relish it and don't let it die. That's what makes you who you are, in your defenseless state. You being in love with the person you can't live without and that feeling is not wasted, it reciprocated by him."

I allowed my tears to flounder inside my eyes. I don't want him to see me in square one, starring in my own melodramatic theater, playing in replay.

"This is for the best. I am protecting him. I'd catch a bullet for Yi-Yibo, even if that means I'll have to stay in the obscurities of secrecy and sacrifice my heart for him." Don't you dare cry, Xiao Zhan!!!

In my father's spheres of dark brown eyes, a flash of despondency cut across. "I understand." HE GAVE UP ON THE ISSUE. I SUPPOSE. "Don't twist yourself to this trip and think that I am mugging Cupid's job to patch you and Yibo up. This is merely business, you as the CEO of the company who is much willing to pay him money and do anything to pursue an idol to be our brand ambassador, boss and wage earner setup. Nothing more. Nothing less."

"Dad I'm not going to Korea." I carried on to finish the cake and washed my hands to the faucet in our sink. "I don't have the strength to face him without breaking into pieces." I confessed and sat on the stool, forsaking my tartlets, pies, gateau and chocolate truffles.

"As I said you will go there as our company's envoy that has an obligation to change his managers mind, not Yibo's future husband striving to ask him to give you another chance to prove yourself that it's not a mistake to love you."

I disdainfully gloated at him. "You're making this difficult and that won't happen. I'm gonna be Zoey's husband not his."

"If Yibo allows it then you'll be that girl's other half." He did. He permitted it. Dad's too optimistic. "Go."

"We have our own private jet." Shifting the subject of the conversation was the only thing I essentially asked for at this hour. "I won't be late."

"There's an urgent meeting with our New York branch executives so I'll use it. Repair yourself and go to the airport. Suho's outside of the manor." Hold it, repair?

"You mean, prepare?"

"No, repair. You are fucked up, a mess, heartbroken and jammed in denial stage of your love. Mend yourself. " I didn't sleep all night and the energy that was left in me; I utilized it to the one man show I've been doing, a contestant of Master Chef China that will never aired on TV. Bless my poor seaweed brain.

"DAD YIBO AND I ARE DONE. I CHOSE ZOEY OVER HIM." Head down, I twiddled with the cupcake wrappers.

"Xiao Zhan, stop harming yourself. You think you deserve that pain you are bringing to yourself, you don't...What are you so afraid of?"

A lot.

"I am not scared. I love Zoey." I ground my teeth in mute vexation.

"Look at me and tell me, straight in the eye that you don't love Wang Yibo." He demanded in a hush whisper.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I caught my mouth voiced the two words I never intend to say. "I-I...can't."

"Figure it yourself and when you do, follow what's in your heart, not your brain. Your brain's too realistic for that." Way to crash my pride.

"We'll desolate each other if we will be together."

"He'd be into that." If there's a prize for a rotten judgment, my dad already gotten it with rapid rainbows in the sky and golden crowns. "Look at your neck, he marked you as his. Wear a turtleneck sweater!"

I grunted along with my subzero oxygen and exited the area.

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From Terminal three of Beijing Capital we boarded Hainan Airlines, an aircraft 789-9 to Incheon International Airport.

"Our departure is scheduled at one fifty in the afternoon sir, right at this very moment and it was estimated that we'll arrived at four fifty in Seoul, two hour's flight." Suho enlightened me as I set foot on the entrance of the place.

My father's influential name all over China made it easier for us to reach the flying machine. His assistant and I were escorted by the higher-ups of the management to the door of it, free from checking of luggages and documents, I was thankful to dad. I also didn't go through any other procedures like going to security inspection and to the assessment chamber for the virus, specifically the COVID-19. Upon presenting my boarding pass, three of the flight attendants welcomed me, introduced themselves and showed the business class where my seat was located. It consists of 36 seats, spread across six rows in a two to two to two configuration.

I am consigned in a 22A bench which was the aisle seat. Next to it, by the window a sleeping stranger with white REI Co-op Stormhenge 850 and black surgical mask, comfortably tucked in with his reclined chair and headphones. It was connected to the tiny screen in his side. I saw that it was playing a philharmonic orchestra concerto.

"Sir, what do you want to drink? Lychee, grape or apple juice?" A lady in uniform asked me as I was settled in.

"Water would be great." I offered an answer and she left.

She came back several seconds with warm towel to clean my hands, an anti-bacterial sanitizer, mixed flavored peanuts and my water. Being in the second row to the last line, I sensed safety even I anxiously dreaded the feeling that submerge me whenever I am up above the holy ground, I knew Suho was in the back. He chatted with a teenager American boy, they discussed about Kpop groups I hadn't heard before, still their noise stapled me to my intestines and relaxed me.

All through the voyage, I sketched various classical art figures and read my med books. The person beside me didn't stir or do anything but slept the journey off.

After an eternity the airplane began to descend toward Seoul, I dithered, reaching the overly resting guy, only to pull my hand back away. This happened a dozen times before the plane touched down with a jarring impact.

"Excuse me, we're here." I finally whispered to him.

No reaction or movement. Is he dead?

"Sir." Suho called me, primed to be out from the craft with his laptop.

I signaled him a 'Yeah' and took one last look to my seatmate.
"Lead the way."

We encountered the same process in Korea's airport, nobody cause havoc about our passports and other travel papers, no evaluations too, thanks to my family name. Suho and I paced the building with the other passengers.

As I marched I wore my face mask and parka due to the cold that blazing within me. Incheon was located thirty miles west of Seoul, South Korea and because it's February, same as China and the season; extremely freezing.

"What are the words in that girl's signage?" I directed my query to the man when I noticed that there were females lining up in one corner of our terminal gate.

"Saranghaeyo, Yibo. Nae maeumi deullini." (I love you, Yibo. Can you hear my heart?) He provided me a sympathetic smile. "They are fans of Wang Yibo, sir."

"Yibo?" YIBO?

"Yes sir, the person next to you in the plane was him."

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Wrong grammars and English usage errors. I'll edit this work soon.

-Bishounenhow111