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"He should be somewhere back here." Jaerin mumbled, opening the screen door to the backyard. Mari peered from behind her, narrowing her eyes as she scoped out the area. She was right, it wasn't as crowded as it was indoors. Everyone mainly seemed to stay close to where the alcohol and loud music was, not wanting to miss a single thing. While the backyard was still generally populated with people, it wasn't enough to send her mind into a panicked frenzy. Her little headache she was having wouldn't like anything else that could make it evolve into some type of migraine.
The backyard was absolutely huge. There were a small bonfire people seemed to be gathering around, playing drinking games and socializing with strangers they had never seen before. Near it was a gigantic gated pool that a few boys decided to jump into without mingi's permission. As soon as one of them was able to get over, they opened the locked gate for all to pass by. One of them stood on top of a tap and yelled the news to all ears that would listen. Quickly after his announcement, everyone cheered in response to his words and joined him and his friends.
"Look, over there!" Jaerin called out as she stepped out of the door frame, leaving Mari behind her. She quickly stumbled after her, ignoring how uncoordinated she was. Her eyes followed the girl's fingers, trying to pinpoint exactly what she was looking at. It was a little hard when her sight kept going in and out of focus, forcing her to focus on one detail at a time. Fortunately for her, the first detail she was able to catch was the person she was looking for. "There's our man of the night."
There was a boy hanging out with his duo of tall friends, laughing and grinning about whatever they do. The chains that dangled down his neck jingling as one of his friends tried to shove the newly blond into the waters. He stumbled a bit before regaining his balance and punching one of them on the shoulder and rambling on about something. "Hongjoong!" The girl called her voice slightly higher in pitch and waving her hands like a madman. Mari would have tried to stop her, but she was too focused on leaning up against the wall for a little bit of rest.
Jaerin turned to her in glee, her smile a bit bigger than it normally was. Though she dropped it almost immediately when she saw the state that Mari was in. "Are you okay? If the drink is hitting you hard, there's a guest room upstairs you can rest in. Though I'm not sure if you'll be alone." She offered, holding her hands out for her to grab. The girl shook her head though, forcing herself off the wall and to stand up as straight as possible. Mari could handle whatever alcohol she had downed, she just needed a moment to get used to what was happening to her.
"I'm fine... we can keep going, I'm just... really out of it." She informed, ignoring how slurred her words were as she stood up. Jaerin gave her a questionable look but shrugged it off nonetheless. She simply grabbed Mari's hand and led her towards the trio of boys from earlier. The girl gave her the a-okay, that she was ready to keep going. But she was regretting that decision of hers with every moment she spent walking. Mari almost stumbled several times and was as uncoordinated as a baby who just walked for the first time. What the hell was in that drink?
Jaerin let go of Mari as soon as the three boys were in sight, beaming brightly at them as she held her hands behind her back. "It looks like the boys are trying to stir up trouble again. Yunho, Seonghwa, why would you try and push him into the pool? Those clothes are new! I should know, my mother told me to gift it to him last week." Mari wasn't really paying attention to whatever they were talking about. Her vision was going in and out of focus and she couldn't pinpoint what was in the drink that made her feel like this. Hell, it was making her head throb with pain every time she tried to think about it.
So she searched for the closest chair to her, which ended up being a patio sofa. Mari practically collapsed onto it, closing her eyes and trying to ease her headache at least a little bit. Though she only felt warmer than normal, her headache increasing in pain at the same time. God, she felt like an absolute mess. "Princess, you came! I though Mingi was lying to me when he said you had agreed to attend, but look at where you are! Quick, you have to spill everything he said, I know he tried to make me sound like a bad person." She slowly opened her eyes again, ready to strangle whoever dared to disturb her while she wasn't in the best of moods at the moment.
She came face to face with the boy from earlier, expect his glee and interest was now aimed at her instead of the pool. Mari's eyes widened a bit more as she looked him up and down, slowly picking the right words to say. At any given point she might spill out a messy curse at him, but that wouldn't be very polite would it? Not when he was smiling at her like she had been the only one he was waiting for the entire time. "Woah..." was all that came out of her mouth as she gave him the longest gaze she might have ever done in her entire life.
His smile slowly fell into a frown of confusion, looking at her a little more intensely than normal. He placed a hand onto her head, checking her temperature without the right tools to do so. She couldn't help but admire all the tattoos he donned, making out some intricate design she couldn't quite understand. Though she could spot the compass looking tattoo on his forearm, probably one of the biggest ones she could see. It reminded her of her friend's single tattoo behind his ear, hidden by the hair that fell on top of it. "Have you been drinking, princess? You seem like you're out of it now."
Mari sat you almost immediately, grabbing his face with her hands and making him focus on her and her only. "I don't know who you are... but you're a very, very beautiful person? Do you know that? You've been got a cool eyebrow piercing to top it off!" She exclaimed, taking the boy back for a second. His friends seemed to have caught what she has said, turning around in complete and utter confusion as to what just happened. Jaerin seemed shocked too, masking it with a strained smile and a questionable glint in her eyes. Though Mari only giggled, letting go of his face and falling right back into place on the sofa.
Mari swung her legs back and forth, the flush on her face was extremely prominent to show she has completely wrecked from drinking. Somehow they had pulled Mingi away from his other friends and convinced him to carry her to another room, away from all the commotion. Hongjoong and his friends watched as she giggled, her eyes never leaving the boy's figure. "I'm like... so serious." She told them, reaching out her hands towards Hongjoong. It was like she was begging for him to pick her up. "You're so pretty! You're like... an angel that fell from heaven... and you keep calling me princess... does that mean I get to call you a prince? You'll let me do that? Right? Haha, prince is so cute!"
Hongjoong was going to completely flip his shit. He's never had anyone flip the switch on him and use his own pet names against him. Yet here he was, climbing the stairs after his redheaded friend while the girl he's known for only a few weeks has blurted out gibberish. This was probably the tenth time she's told him he's attractive in some way, shape, or form. The boy was going to take the compliments of course, but it just felt odd. Had this mean any other girl he had met he'd be extremely into it and have his ego boosted to the clouds in the sky.
Yet this was Mari and from all the very short conversations she's had with him, this wasn't who she was. Hongjoong may have found joy in annoying her and pushing all the buttons he could find, but this wasn't it. He's not one to take advantage of a situation while someone is under the influence of alcohol. Though the boy couldn't say the same for any of the people downstairs. Especially the college kids who were always looking for a one night stand. "Hey, can you help me open the door, I feel like if I even try I might end up killing her."
Mingi had his hands full, not wanting to accidentally drop the girl he had personally invited. So Seonghwa slid past Hongjoong and Mingi, opening the door open and allowing the two to walk through. The room was completely empty, which was a little odd compared to how full all his rooms usually are. Yunho immediately closed the blinds to the windows so that someone would assume the room was occupied and wouldn't intrude. Seonghwa turned on a lamp for dim lighting that wouldn't hurt Mari's eyes whenever she regained her stability. Mingi did the final touches, dropping her in the bed as if she was a rag doll.
The redhead ruffled his messy and tangled hair as he turned over to Hongjoong and his crew. "So... how did this happen? I know it's partly my fault, I wasn't looking after her. But I didn't expect the next time I saw her be completely smashed." He glanced back at the girl pitifully, sorry for even pressuring her to come to his party. Though when the trio didn't answer his question, Mingi became suspicious. "You better speak up now, we have to find someone close to her to come get her. They'll want an explanation on how this happened." Yunho and Seonghwa exchanged worried glances before Hongjoong told him.
"Jaerin." He responded, leaning on the now-closed door to the room. Had Hongjoong never held himself back, he was almost sure he'd probably hurt Jaerin and have the cops called on them. At first, the girl wanted to act like she was concerned for Mari, telling them that she had offered her to sit down multiple times and asked her if she wanted to leave. Though Seonghwa, and his terrifying gaze when he suspects a liar, had gotten through rather quickly. She confessed that she made her drink, but only to liven up her time at the party.
"It wasn't my fault!" Jaerin had complained, crossing her arms like an angry toddler. "I told her to taste it, not down the whole thing like an alcoholic! If she was really careful she would have checked if I had spiked or not but no. She wanted to drink the whole thing right then and there like a big girl!" The girl's rambling had gotten her caught red-handed. She didn't even notice until Hongjoong rose from where he was crouching, approaching her with such speed his friends almost couldn't catch him. To put it simply, he scared the devil right out Jaerin when he started swearing at her.
"You can't invite her to any more of your parties, you know that right?" Hongjoong advised, a frown growing on his face as he thought about Jaerin's misbehavior. Mingi only sighed in response as he listened to the boy ramble, knowing the giant scolding he was receiving. "She's spiking drinks, Mingi! Do you know how dangerous that is? The cops could be called on her and you'll be arrested too because you let her keep doing it every time she attended! You'll basically be an accomplice!"
"What can he do though?" Yunho asked, collapsing into a chair in the corner of the room. All three of them looked towards him like he had lost his mind, yet the boy only shrugged. "You know Jaerin follows Mingi around all the time, she's like a parasite and he's the unfortunate host. He'll never get away from her. And even if she was arrested you know her family is going to bail her out as soon as they can. That's how rich families work." The group collectively sighed at the same time, drowning misfortune. What we're they gonna do about Jaerin? There wasn't a lot if he had to be honest.
"Let's just focus on her for now, right?" Seonghwa asked, pointing towards Mari who seemed to be drifting off into sleep. He spotted a phone in her pockets and quickly swiped it up to try and get in contact with someone. Hopefully, her speed dial wasn't her parents or nine one one, that could cause a lot of chaos. He searched through her phone for her contacts, slightly surprised by the fact that her phone didn't have a password. "Look, her calls are usually towards this Wooyoung guy. We'll call him and ask him to come get her."
Mingi clapped his hands together as if he recognized that name before. "Oh! That's the guy she came with earlier! She said he wouldn't stick around for long so he's probably not in this area anymore. We can try though, just to test our luck. Is there someone else we can call if it doesn't work?" He exclaimed, quickly clambering to Seonghwa so that he could be included. Though the two of them didn't seem to notice the frown on Mari's face as she raised herself off the bed. She seemed to finally be clinking into the conversation for the first time since they brought her up to the room.
"Don't call Wooyoung," She demanded, reaching out towards Hongjoong and begging him to come closer. "Wooyoung is... is a jerk! I don't wanna see... see him anymore! He's a huge jerk, he's not as nice as prince is." Mari blurted before falling right back into the bed. The group gave her a halfhearted laugh, definitely not listening to a word she was saying. The girl was intoxicated and spewing out whatever came to her head first. All they could do was ignore her and call any friends or siblings she had to come and retrieve her.
"Hongjoong, stay here and look after her, okay? I think the only person she's going to listen to right now is you." Seonghwa told him, giving him an apologetic smile before turning to the other two. "Mingi is going to call this guy since they've spoken to each other at least once, it'll be too awkward if it was with any of us. Yunho and I will wait outside and try and find him if we can." He decided, almost completely disregarding Hongjoong's protests as they all exited the room.
His eyes lingered on the now closed door, left alone with a drunk girl. This could let do many out of context situations if anyone walked into the room. "Screw you Park Seonghwa... I thought you had my best interest in mind at all times." Hongjoong mumbled, a sigh escaping his mouth as he fell back onto the bed. He turned his head to be greeted by the flushed and drunk Mari, who smiled at him despite not knowing the situation she was in. "You cause a lot more trouble than you think, princess."
She sat up expectantly, barely balancing herself when sitting upright. "That's okay! I get to be... be alone with prince." Mari gushed, running her hands through her already messy hair. Hongjoong snorted at her actions though he was taken aback when her hands found their way to the collar of his shirt. She pulled him closer to her, hiccuping as she laughed to herself. "I'm left all alone with you... how scandalous is that, huh prince?"
"Very," He responded, closer to her than he'd really like to be. Hongjoong tried to move away from her, but she only pulled him towards her once more. He yelped when Mari leaned back into the bed, pulling him down with her. He pressed his arms onto either side of her, forcing him to stay above her instead of collapsing right on her. Oh, how bad it looked to an outsider. "You're drunk as shit," he reminded, whether it was to himself or to her was unknown.
Though, Mari responded anyways. "And you're too gorgeous to resist." She declared, a laugh escaping her mouth as the red flush on her face grew stronger. There was a knock on the door and Hongjoong immediately threw himself away from her. Startled by the sudden interruption. The door opened just as he landed on the floor, revealing a wide-eyed and worried boy. He was completely disheveled like he had been running from point a to point b. There were various scratch marks scattered all over his skin and he was bleeding from a cut near his eye, but he didn't seem to care.
"Mari! God, I'm so sorry I shouldn't have left you alone," He apologized, quickly rushing towards the drunk girl's side. Seonghwa and Mingi appeared in the door frame a few moments after, huffing and puffing like they had chanced him down. Mari whined when she saw who had come to get her, refusing to be taken home by him. She was practically throwing a temper tantrum, every time he tried to force her up. "Come on Mari, we've got to go. I'm going to get in so much trouble for ditching and leaving you alone... Ugh, I'm so sorry."
"That's Wooyoung," Seonghwa informed him, sitting down on the floor with him. They watched as the boy thanked the trio profusely, slinging Mari's arm around his so that he could take her home somehow. "He didn't hesitate when we said she needed to be picked up. Mingi was barely able to explain that her drink was spiked and she was drunk. He hung up almost right away even. What a good friend he is." Hongjoong nodded, watching as the two left the room almost as quickly as they came. Yeah, what a great friend he was indeed.