Riptide 》WinWin

Five

Marina's POV:

"Okay okay, let's go get you some clothes or something uh...here" he said as he ran over to his dresser, opening it quickly and fishing through it for something. Eventually he pulled out something that I had never seen before. "This is my life savings, we will use this to pay for things like new clothes for you." He said as he showed it to me before shoving it in his pocket. "You use that to pay for stuff?" I asked, amazed. "Yeah, it is called money, wait what did you use in the sea when you bought stuff." He asked.

"Sand dollars" I said casually but for some reason, he thought it was hilarious. "What's so funny?" I asked as I pouted, wondering what this joke was. "It..it's nothing" he said as he finally managed to get himself to stop laughing. "Now let's go get you some clothes." He said as he gave me his hand, helping me up but also changing the subject. "Wait" I said, pulling on his hand to stop him from walking me out the door. "What's wrong?" He looked at me concerned. "You said this was your life savings..I could never let you use this on me." I frowned, realizing he had literally spent his whole life saving this money up just to end up using it on some strange girl he had just met.

He truly was a sweet guy but I just felt wrong about accepting the money. "Without you, I wouldn't even have a life right now." He said as he looked into my eyes sincerely. "It's the least I can do." He said before pulling me out of his room and rushing me down the stairs while I continued to admire him from behind. How could he be so sweet to a girl he just met? I had truly never met a guy like him, let alone a human like him, then again I had never actually met a human before though I heard most of them are horrible.

We walked down the sidewalk as he finally let go of my hand and walked a little ahead of me. I frowned at the loss of contact as I tugged on his shirt I was wearing, making sure it was covering my thighs a bit since some people were walking around. I watched and tries to mimic how everyone else was walking but stumbled a bit due to how weak my legs still were. As soon as I turned to look back in Sicheng's direction, I was hit with something hard, making me stumble back and almost fall down.

"Are you okay?" I heard Sicheng's voice as I put two and two together and realized I had ran into his back since I wasn't watching where I was going. "Yeah, I'm fine" I said. He smiled at me and gestured for me to follow him again. Eventually we made it to what he called a clothing store and I was absolutely fascinated. "Here we definitely need to get you some shoes." He said, the both of us looking down at my bare feet on the floor before he lead me over to this so called shoe section. "These will work" he handed me a pair of light blue sneakers which made me smile since I loved anything blue. I held onto them while he lead me to the clothes.

"We should get you something for warm weather since summer's get really hot here." He said while he began to search through one of the racks but something else caught my attention. I smiled and ran over to grab these shorts from a random rack on the other side of the store but as I went to grab them, someone else did too. I looked up to see some black haired girl looking at me confused. "Um, I saw these first, sorry." She said before yanking them away from me as a guy walked up behind her. "I'm sorry about her, by the way, I don't think I've seen you around here, are you new to town?" The boy with brown hair asked. As I opened up my mouth to speak, I heard someone say my name behind me and I turned to see Sicheng.

"Marina, how about this one-" he held a shirt up to where I could see it but stopped talking and his smile faded once I saw who I was talking to. He walked over to us as he held onto the shirt while looking at them kind of angrily. "H-hey Sicheng, I didn't expect to see you here." The guy said as he scratched the back of his neck. I looked back and forth between them as the girl looked at Sicheng rather friendly but a bit too friendly for my liking so I scooted next to him and crossed my arms. "I thought you were sick Kun." Sicheng said, annoyed.

"Well sorry about it Sicheng, I made him hang out with me today." The girl said kind of rudely. I clenched my fist at my side, wanting to fight her for talking to him like that but Kun spoke up. "And you didn't tell me you had a new friend either." Kun said. "Well, we kinda just me-" Sicheng started to say before I cut him off, standing in front of him. "I'm his girlfriend." I said, earning a surprised look from the two of them and even Sicheng. "Well, we'll leave you two to your date, I'll talk to you later Sicheng." Kun said as he lead his girlfriend out of the shop and left me to a surprised Sicheng staring at me.

"Whattt???" I crossed my arms as I looked at him. "I didn't want them to pick on you, we don't have to kiss or anything like that but I'll pretend to be your girlfriend so they leave you alone." I said while looking down at my shoes. "Thank you but you don't have to do that, I can handle things myself." Sicheng said while walking back to the clothes rack. I frowned and sat down on a bench next to a mirror and pouted. I heard Sicheng sigh before he walked over to me again. "Look, I'm sorry, I am just stressed about some stuff right now. Here try this on." He said as he handed me a light grey crop top he had found and I smiled, taking it from him and standing up. As I walked to the changing room, I realized that girl had never gotten those shorts I was looking at so I rushed over and found them in the rack I had been standing next to.

I smiled and picked them up, rushing to the changing room and putting it on along with the shirt. I looked in the mirror, brushing my blue hair behind my shoulders while I looked at myself in the light grey crop top and black short shorts and the light blue shoes and smiled. I walked out of the changing room and found Sicheng waiting on a bench and called for him. The moment his eyes looked at me, they grew wide as his jaw dropped before he quickly closed it, standing up as he looked me up and down quickly before blushing and turning away. "Wow um..let's go find you a few more outfits and pay okay." He walked away from me quickly and I smiled to myself.

We quickly found some more outfits and checked out before leaving the store and heading on to our next destination.

Hey guys, hope you liked this chapter! Thanks for reading!! It is finally starting to get into the story and I am so excited.

What did you think of Kun and his gf seeing them and Marina saying she was Sicheng's gf???

~-winney-