[Neo Zone] Population: 23 Kids

Corporate Meeting

Johnny paced the length of the really long table made up of several tables that someone had pushed together once the cafe had closed for the night, taking a seat at the head of it. He took a sip of his coffee before setting down the mug, his hands clasped in front of him on the table.

"Thank you all for coming to our corporate meeting. I realize it was short notice."

"You dragged me up from my nap." Hendery complained.

"You literally dragged me from my bed and put me here." Chenle added, which would explain why he looked so disheveled.

"Like I said, thank you for coming."

A lot more of them would have been dragged up from the basement if they hadn't seen Chenle and Hendery go up forcefully and decided it would be less painful to go on their own freewill.

"Can we please speed this up? I get you want to pretend like this is a formal company, but I have a team to coach." Sungchan interjected.

Lucas and Jeno sat up quickly, sharing a mischievous smile.

"Can we join?"

"No."

Lucas looked back at Jeno to confirm they were most certainly crashing his practice once more, and Jeno nodded.

"Fine, I'll speed it up." Johnny took another sip of his coffee, ignoring Jaemin when he stole some of it. "I'm sure you're all aware of the rumors going around that we're working towards opening a second location-"

"We're doing what?" Yuta interrupted.

"How could you not know? We've been talking about it for months." Doyoung deadpanned.

"Sorry, I forgot." He motioned towards Johnny, "Continue."

"As I was saying, I would like to confirm those rumors. We are, most definitely, opening a second cafe within the next few months."

"When?" Jaemin asked.

"He just said the next few months." Haechan fired back.

"I know that, I just wanted to know if he had a date yet."

"February 3rd."

Johnny looked at Taeil, completely confused where that date came from. Especially since he looked like he was just picking it off his phone calendar.

"But that's-"

"Two hundred twenty-four days from now." YangYang finished.

"How did you do the math so fast?" WinWin questioned. YangYang just shrugged.

"You gave us two hundred twenty-four days to find an exact location, get all the paperwork and remodeling done, and have the cafe operational?" Jaehyun was trying to keep his calm at this point, but it wasn't working.

Kun and Johnny were already running numbers through their heads, unsure if it was even possible. It probably was, but that all depended on how fast they could work with the city council.

"You guys know we don't have to go with that date just because Taeil picked it, right?" Ten asked.

"We could go with the second or the first of February if you want." Taeil offered.

Kun threw his hands in the air. "That's even less time!" 

"Well we can't push it back further."

"Why?" Taeyong interjected, putting a hand on Johnny's shoulder in attempts to calm him down.

This was not the formal meeting Johnny wanted to have. Then again, it's not a very normal workplace and none of them were technically hired.

Taeil shrugged, "I don't know."

"I can slow time for a bit, give us an extra day or two at the most." Renjun suggested.

"You can do that?"

"Don't be so surprised, Morkley. I can do a lot of things."

"I don't think we should change the date. I like it." Jungwoo spoke up, Shotaro nodding.

"Me too."

"Plus, if we divide it by 5.02 it's forty-three and I feel like that number should hold significance." YangYang inputed.

Xiaojun sighed, placing his hands down on the table and wincing when they hit the table too hard.

"I'm confused. Where did this date come from?"

"Taeil randomly picked it." Haechan explained, as if it was much of an explanation at all.

"He didn't randomly pick it. It's two hundred twenty-four days from now." YangYang corrected.

"Why does two hundred twenty-four matter?!" Johnny practically shouted.

Taeil shrugged, "I don't know."

The table then turned to Jisung who was watching Ten scribble out a drawing on a napkin. He only noticed all attention was on him once he realized it was too quiet.

"Hmm? Oh have I been quiet again?"

Chenle nodded, "Very."

"Are we opening the second cafe on February 3rd or a different day?" Doyoung asked.

Jisung thought they seriously needed a different way to decide all this important stuff instead of just turning to the youngest because he was quiet.

He looked around the table to judge what everyone was thinking. He caught Taeil nodding, so he thought that was a good sign just to go with it.

"Yeah, February 3rd sounds good."

Johnny, Taeyong, Doyoung, Jaehyun and Kun groaned as the other happily got up and split up, making comments about how that was such a good meeting. Shaking hands with each other and saying they should do this more often, a majority of the kids went downstairs to play a massive game of twister.

Johnny downed the rest of his coffee as if it was something stronger.

"I'm never doing that again."