Echo || NCTau ||

17 - Attention

"Where is my smart boy?" Haechan exclaimed the second he entered the busy, western-style restaurant. People turned to look at him, mostly confused by his loudness, but he ignored them because he had just spotted Jisung covering behind Jaemin in the corner table, looking absolutely mortified by Haechan's explosive entrance.

The others were already there and Haechan wasn't going to tell them that the reason he was late to the celebratory dinner wasn't that he had been working overtime but that he was late because the otter had persuaded him to search for the most perfect pair of socks as a gift to the man of the hour. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them and he wasn't that late anyway, just a little bit over half an hour.

"You passed your mockup exam!" he hollered while weaving through the tables to get to his people, and, in the process, almost knocked down an older lady who was having dinner with her grandkids. "63%!"

"Shut up!" Jisung hissed from behind Jaemin, while Chenle cackled at his embarrassment and Jeno and Jaemin shook their heads at Haechan in disapproval. Mark was busy at work but he had promised to try to make it to their celebration later.

"You're late", Jaemin commented when Haechan sat down.

"Work was crazy, I was – "

"Crazy enough that you just had to go shopping?"

Haechan grimaced. He hadn't thought about the fact that of course everyone would see the paper bag the cashier had given for the socks.

Meekly, he handed the gift bag to Jisung without facing Jaemin's judgment. "Congratulations for passing your mock exam."

"I barely passed", Jisung pointed out softly but accepted the bag anyway. "The teacher told me that he thinks that my brain has been replaced with sawdust. I ranked second to last."

"Sungie." Jaemin gave the youngest one a hard glare. "Don't be so hard on yourself. You never went to high school so of course studying for a university entrance exam is difficult for you. Besides, last time you scored 49% so this is a huge improvement!"

Jeno nodded. "You've worked so hard so don't belittle your own advancements!"

"We all are proud of you!" Haechan confirmed. "I'll shout it to the world if you wish. Hey everyone, my – "

Jisung all but leapt over the table to silence Haechan when he turned towards the restaurant and raised his voice to bother the other customers again.

"Don't do it! Shut up, please!" he sounded panicked and his face had flushed red. "I believe you, okay? You're proud of me, I get it!"

Haechan grinned. "Today's my treat, smart boy! I saw a bar so they must have cocktails too, right?"

***

"The corner table ordered a pineapple soju cocktail", the server girl notified the bartender while passing by on her way to the kitchen.

"Just one drink for the entire table?" The bartender glanced towards the table with a group of guys.

The waitress shrugged. "One of them is celebrating or something."

Yeoreum followed the bartender's gaze to make sure that they talked about her target table. As soon as she had confirmed her suspicion, she turned forward again and downed the double shot of the cheapest vodka the fancy establishment had. While flipping the long wispy strands of hair over her shoulder, she took out her phone to move to the next step of her plan before it would be too late.

From: Yeoreum
To: Sungchan
It's almost time. R u ready? EST 2min.

The situation was ideal. No one other than Jisung was going to get a cocktail so, as long as Sungchan had managed to infiltrate the electricity network as he said he would and could time the shutdown of the entire building before the waitress would have time to take the drink to the table, she could finally succeed.