NeoNara || TXT || taebin || yeonkai

2017: Saturday, Part Two

2017, DAY TWO
Saturday, August 19, 2017 1:15 PM

The 'pregame' lasts until the Peaky P-Key set starts at five.

The party itself is held in Taehyun and Soobin's RV, as Roger and Melinda have bought enough supplies to feed a small army. Yeonjun turns on some random music on Pandora, and Beomgyu passes around the beer to everybody except Taehyun, who grabs an orange juice instead.

"Virgin tequila sunrise," he jokes, and everybody laughs, toasting their reunion.

From there on, it devolves, as all parties tend to do. Beomgyu and Shelly get in a contest to see who can down the most beer bottles — Shelly wins — and Yeonjun and Soobin drink way too many soju shots. Before long, they are singing along to every sentimental pop song that comes on the radio, and there is one particular rousing rendition of Complicated by Avril Lavigne that is so loud that Taehyun's right ear whines in protest.

"I think I need to lay down for a bit," he tells Soobin, and the group lets him go to the back to close his eyes for a while. They continue their pregame, but stay quiet.

Taehyun makes it to the back okay and gathers all of his blankets around him, then sighs. His right ear still feels like it got in a fight with a marshmallow and lost, and his vertigo is still super bad. He's more than a little concerned that he may nap and it will get worse, to the point where Soobin may have to do the show solo tonight. He can't put that kind of pressure on Soobin; on top of that, Soobin's still not supposed to be performing for profit on his visa.

This would all be simplified if they could just get married. But Taehyun knows Soobin won't ask him to marry him. Not until after his military time, at least.

"Good morning."

Taehyun jumps. He's not laying in bed anymore — he's sitting at a desk, and when he turns, he realizes he is in his high school English classroom. Sitting next to him is Jay Myung. It's a move that doesn't surprise Taehyun at all.

"What are you doing here?" he still asks.

"Ehh. Thought I would invade your dream. It's fun!" And Taehyun and Jay spend a fifteen minute dream running around Taehyun's old school. There is a soda machine in the cafeteria that spits out coffee, and when Taehyun looks out the window, there are whales flying through the sky.

And when he wakes up, the fullness in his ear is still there, but the vertigo is gone.

While Taehyun takes his nap, Soobin drinks another shot of soju and then chases it with a Gatorade. He oversees his kingdom: Shelly is in the front seat, nicely buzzed, texting her wife. Yeonjun and Kai are both in the booth; despite drinking the equivalent of an entire soju bottle, Yeonjun is only buzzed, while Kai is incoherently rambling about stuffed animals. Beomgyu is sitting in the stairwell, nursing a bottle of Bud Light.

"Twenty-two bottles of beer on the wall, twenty-two bottles of beer..."

"Is your husband asleep?" Kai asks, noticing Soobin in the room.

"He is," Soobin scoffs, "and he's not my husband."

"He should be." Kai lays his arms on the table, relaxing. "Why aren't you all married yet?"

"Now, Kai-yah," Yeonjun says, kicking Kai's legs under the booth. "We know it's not that simple. Soobin has to go back and do his military time first."

"They could get engaged before that!" Kai interjects, a bit too loudly for Soobin's tastes. "Like a big party or something before he leaves. Then when Soobin gets back, they get married!"

"Yeah, and then Taehyun will send him a Dear John letter," Beomgyu mutters from the other side of the room.

"What's a Dear John letter?" Soobin asks.