NeoNara || TXT || taebin || yeonkai

2015: Saturday, Part One

2015, DAY TWO
Saturday, August 15, 2015 4:05 AM

It is way before anybody should be awake when Taehyun exits his trailer.

He is dead to the world, in a white t-shirt and black sweatpants. Plastic thong flip-flop sandals adorn his feet. His hair is a mess. But he holds his keys, and he holds his phone, and he shuts the door and trudges across the RV park, all by himself. He walks past the Waeng trailer, all the way down, to the end of the line. There is a good sized RV there, and Taehyun knocks on the door.

Yeonjun opens the door. "Wow, man, you really do look like ass."

He nearly has to pull Taehyun up into the RV. The style is similar to the small RVs Yeonjun has rented before, but this time there is a queen bed in the back. The curtain is drawn; Taehyun figures Kai is still asleep back there somewhere. Yeonjun makes sure most of the lights are off, and then he makes Taehyun sit down in a plush chair that is bolted to the floor. He reaches into the refrigerator. "Orange juice or water?"

"Either. Wait -- orange juice."

"Gotcha." Yeonjun pulls out a bottle of orange juice and hands it to Taehyun. He shuts the refrigerator and sits on the floor, in front of Taehyun. This is a similar position that he had held last year, when he had nursed Kai back to health from a hangover. But this time around, it's Taehyun, and it's not a hangover.

"When did this start?"

"I don't know. I wasn't -- paying attention to it."

"Hey, hey, it's okay." Yeonjun knows that Soobin and Taehyun went back to their RV to have sex last night. It's all they've talked about at the apartment for weeks. We gotta do it at NeoNara, we gotta wipe out Mayumi's memory, et cetera, et cetera. Yeonjun had told both men that it wasn't a good idea to put so much pressure on one sexual act, or else it wouldn't feel right or something might go wrong or expectations might not be met. And now Taehyun is on his front step at four in the morning, and Soobin is not.

"First of all, I gotta know this. I'm not going to ask you details of what you did. I don't need those, boo. If you wanna tell me later, you can. As long as you were safe."

"We were safe. I promise."

"And did you have fun?"

A sly grin crosses Taehyun's face. He nods. "I did. It was so much fun."

"Drink your damn orange juice, little brother."

Taehyun complies and uncaps the orange juice, sipping from it.

"So when did this start?"

Taehyun sighs. "I really don't know. I was too distracted by..."

"Soobin."

"Yes. Soobin. Soobin was very distracting."

"So walk me through a timeline then."

"I thought you said you didn't want to know what we did --"

Yeonjun has to remember to keep his voice down. "Oh, my God, I don't! Be vague!"

"Okay, fine. We got back, we did stuff, we fell asleep. We woke up..." Taehyun thinks to himself. "Around...two? I don't know when. But we slept for like an hour, and I woke up and Soobin was also awake, and we -- ahem -- did more stuff. But after that, Soobin fell asleep again, and I couldn't go back to sleep, and that's when I noticed it."

"Oh. Okay."

Taehyun sticks his finger into his right ear. No matter what he does, he cannot quiet the low ringing in it. He can't get rid of this feeling that there's a Q-Tip stuck in it. His left ear is fine, but his right ear is not. And it's worrying him. How is he supposed to perform like this? If he goes on stage and nothing has changed, he won't be able to focus at all. Normally, his ear rings for just a moment, and then it goes away. But there are moments where it lasts for a long time, and he doesn't know what he can do to make it stop.