NeoNara || TXT || taebin || yeonkai

2014: Saturday, Part Four

2014, DAY TWO
Saturday, August 16, 2014 5:53 PM

Waeng arrives at the main building before Taehyun's parents do. Cici and other Waeng superfans help Angel tear down the set while Beomgyu, Shelly and Kai check in on first Yeonjun, then briefly Soobin and Taehyun. Soobin gets Taehyun awake enough to talk to Officer Jackson, and he confirms that Mayumi only slapped him. "No knives, no weapons. I got...into the bathroom before...things got worse," he explains in bits and pieces.

Then Taehyun's parents arrive. Roger and Melinda Rhodes are as middle class and white as you could possibly ever get with a couple, and Soobin wonders just how Korean Taehyun Rhodes could be their son. But when they enter the first aid room, Taehyun starts crying when he sees them, and they hold him close. Roger then goes with Officer Jackson to review the damage to the RV.

"The RV itself is in working order," he explains when he gets back. "We can clean it up pretty easily and drive it back tonight. Terry, you can get a good night's sleep in your own bed, and we can address the rest of this in the morning."

"Actually..." Taehyun looks at the ground. "I want to stay. Can I stay? Please? I'm okay now, and, well, I have my friends to...help me out with things."

Roger looks at the motley crew of friends his son has amassed: three Korean men, a woman who is clearly transgender, and another man of dubious heritage. "I love you, son, but is there any reason you have to stay here?"

"I mean, we'd hate to miss Sunday," Yeonjun says with a smile.

Ivy, still behind Yeonjun, snaps her fingers and stands up. "Yeah, that's right! Our set is tomorrow at 3 PM. You guys should come!"

"Oh, I don't think we would miss that for the world," Soobin says. "Miss Ivy and her boyfriend helped your son out when he couldn't get out of the RV."

"We should all go," Beomgyu says, eyes on River. "You look like my kind of musician."

Yeonjun grins. "I'm sure we can do even more than that. I wanna know everything about your set, who's playing, what kind of music you play, the works. I bet you didn't know I'm a music blogger."

River stares back in shock. "I didn't know that!"

"Can I please stay?" Taehyun asks his parents. "I know it would be easy to just go home for a bit, but...I wanna stay here, and relax for tonight, and catch up with my friends. I don't want to do anything fancy, just keep it simple. But tomorrow, I want to go back out with them, and go see River's show, and enjoy them. They're only up from the city for today and tomorrow."

"Oh, honey," Melinda says, "I'm so glad you have friends! You only hung out with Mary for so long, and this seems so much healthier."

"You have no idea," Taehyun mutters.

"But first," Roger says, "we have to clean up the RV. Who's with me?"

Taehyun knows at this point that Mayumi has wrecked his DJ equipment. He has already cried over it, with Soobin on one side and Yeonjun on the other, and Beomgyu has already come up with at least three ideas on how to replace it. But Taehyun does not need to see the RV a mess right now. If he's going to stay in the RV again tonight, all of Mayumi's things need removed, as well as the ruined elements. So Soobin, Kai, and Shelly go with Roger to the RV, while the others stay with him and he formally gets cleared by first aid to return to the festival.

"Put the curtains in here," Roger says as he produces a plastic bag. Shelly and Kai get to work on the electronics; Shelly puts all of the DJ turntable pieces together, while Kai keeps the computer safe. They may be able to extract the hard drive information and put it on a new laptop for Taehyun. Soobin pulls all of the blue from the corners, from under the dining room booth, when he sees a different color.