Ball Boy || Taekook

11

“Rich people are constantly on x games mode.” Jeongguk muttered to Namjoon as he pulled up into the large, expensive sports club car park. Some of the spaces had shelters/roofs shading the cars beneath and those that didn’t had electric charging ports at the top, obviously for hybrid cars. Jeongguk sniffed enviously as he reversed his 2009 Nissan Versa into the space between a silver Rolls Royce Phantom and a brown Bugatti Divo.

The curved, white lines of each individual car space had the club’s initials engraved in them in a rich, dark blue colour and the club’s emblem was printed in the centre of every other space. He’d recently learned that the place was actually called The Navy Eagle and (much to Taehyung’s amusement) was genuinely shocked to find out that it was not actually called “Country Club”. This was all because he’d received a letter in the mail about attending an event at The Navy Eagle and Taehyung had asked him if he was going to go.

“I don’t even know the place!” He’d said in exasperation during one of their practices. “I don’t know how they got my address and info but one thing I do know is that I'm not going. And what’s a soiree anyway? I've never heard of that. It'd be suicide if I went! The Navy Eagle? More like the Shady Eagle.”

“Jeongguk are you fucking stupid?” Taehyung had laughed blatantly in his face, “You work at The Navy Eagle. It's literally written underneath the logo on your shirt.” He chortled as Jeongguk peered down at his work polo and realised belatedly that Taehyung was indeed right – he worked at The Navy Eagle.

“Oh.”

“And a soiree is basically a party.” Taehyung informed through tears of laughter.

“Well, who’s birthday is it?” He’d asked, and after the giant howl that Taehyung unleashed in response, he had decided that it was best to stop asking questions.

Namjoon and Jeongguk got out of the car and headed towards the gate, where a burly security guard nodded at them curtly as they displayed their invitations as ID.

They wandered around through the hallways until they reached the Synth Hall where the soiree would be held. Synth Hall was a glamorous room decorated with iridescent spirals dangling from luxurious silver chandeliers that sat proudly along the high ceiling, and the walls were lined with many spectacular original paintings and grand pictures of important, noble figures of The Navy Eagle.

There were rows and rows of tables and golden, grandiloquent seats with plush maroon velvet padding, and Jeongguk had never felt so poor in his life. It was a formal event, so they were wearing black suits, qnd he fiddled nervously with the cufflink on his right wrist as they stood around aimlessly, waiting for some sort of direction. Eventually, when they realised that they were just supposed to sit wherever they wanted to, they wandered over to a table in the corner and decided to just sit there and keep out of harm's way – can't embarrass yourself if nobody knows you’re there, right?

After about 2 hours of conversation with his best friend, Jeongguk was finally growing tired of Namjoon’s half-assed attempt at paying attention and he sighed.

“Dude, just go over to her.” He said as he pushed around a potato on his dinner plate with his silver fork. It too had the initials TNE on it and Jeongguk had just finished asking why they felt the need to label everything when you had to pass through the giant gate with their name on it too, to even get inside. By now, he had argued, most people would’ve guessed that they were at The Navy Eagle and there was no need for all the fancy cursive labelling. He gathered that Namjoon hadn’t been listening to anything he’d been saying when he looked over and saw his friend craning his neck to see over the tables and staring off into the distance with heart eyes.