hot summer | winteam ✓

three

"yeah, teammieee," the girl on dean's lap coos. team rolls his eyes.

"fine, okay, whatever," team huffs, bringing his cup to his lips and knocking back what's left inside. he grimaces, everclear burning away what's left of his pride and dignity. liquid courage replenished, team squares his shoulders and says, without shame, "i fucked my best friend's dad."

for the briefest moment, team's admission is met with silence, a modicum of calm before the crowd of people around him burst into an uproar of chatter.

"no way! no way, i'm calling bullshit!" says ple, sticking an accusatory finger into team's shoulder. "you're lying!"

"why would he lie about that?" says beau, a girl team knows from ksa, sat on his right. she reaches out a thin, primly manicured hand, and taps him lightly on the cheek. "that's scandalous, though," she jokes.

team shrugs. "he was hot," he says, like that's that.

another wave of laughter disrupts the group, a few people slapping team on the back, like a weird sort of congratulations. dean ends up shoving another cup of jungle juice into team's hand and team takes it gratefully.

the game moves on now to the boy sitting to ple's left, his turn now to pose a scenario. team stares down into his cup, his thoughts wandering as he stares at the amber colored slurry of a drink.

he thinks of mr phawin, of win, of a hot summer and even hotter sex, of sun-warmed pool water and an achingly cold goodbye. team drinks, and drinks some more.

he blacks out.

⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

the last week of classes before winter break comes and goes so fast that it's like team nearly blinks, and next thing he knows, he's packing his bags and calling an uber to pick him up and take him to the train station to catch his train back home.

he and dean had decided that dean was going to come home with team for winter break, since he lives across the country and his own family was going overseas for the holidays and, as dean had so eloquently worded, he "didn't want to have to drop a fuckton of money to fly back home and then have to sit bored as fuck at his grandparents' house in the middle of nowhere in jeju."

team's parents had enthusiastically agreed to host dean for the holidays when team had asked them if it'd be okay, excited to meet one of team's friends from school. team has a sneaking suspicion that his mom just wants to grill dean for information on how team's acclimating, hopeful that dean might divulge details that team would not.

speaking of details that team would never tell to his parents, team forced dean to swear to secrecy in regards to what he now knew about team's summer fling with mr phawin. dean had, as expected, pressed team for more information the next day after the party, when they were alone and hungover in their dorm room, and team had told him everything, with the stipulation that dean would never speak a word of it to anyone else.

dean had promised, with earnest eyes and a lock of their pinkies.

the train ride back home is only two and a half hours, and team sleeps through the majority of it, airpods in and dean drooling on his shoulder. the announcement of the train's arrival wakes team, groggy for a few moments before he comes to and nudges dean to wake him up as well.

the train rolls into their stop about fifteen minutes later, and team texts his mom to let her know they've arrived. she texts back to let him know that she's waiting for them in the main lobby of the train station, followed by a plethora of emojis that team assumes means that she's excited to see them.

they grab their bags from the overheads and make their way out of the traincar, and team spots his mom not too long later. she spots him too, waving excitedly as he and dean approach.