three

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SATURDAY

Spring break had snuck up on you. Between studying for midterms, working part-time at the campus bookstore, and maybe possibly sort of avoiding Jungwoo as best you could outside of your shared chemistry lab, you didn't have the brain capacity to really be cognizant of the passage of time, only your constant state of stress and panic. So you had packed your bags just last night, and were now running around your apartment to get together the last of your things that morning. Johnny had texted a few minutes ago that he was on his way to pick you and Donghyuck up, meaning that you had maybe five minutes left before he arrived.

You ducked under the vine hanging at the entry to the bedroom hallway, and skirted around the monstera that marked the beginning of the jungle that was your living room. Donghyuck generally kept the plants to a lush but tasteful amount, and you liked the greenery, but with both your focuses on midterms week, they had gotten a little unruly without the dryad's usual careful tending to them.

"Hey, Hyuck?" You called out to him from the kitchen.

"Yeah?" Came his reply from where he was reclined on the couch.

"You seen my sunglasses? I thought they were on my dresser but—"

"You loaned them to Mark last week when he accidentally petrified Johnny. He said he's bringing them to give back to you."

"Oh, right," you stopped your frantic searching, joining your roommate in the living room. "Thanks."

"Speaking of—" Donghyuck stood up from the couch with a big stretch, a couple small vines reaching out from the very tips of his fingers before receding back in when he dropped his arms. He focused his dark green eyes on you pointedly, "Johnny said they're here. You ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be at this point," you sighed.

"Cool. So where's your phone?"

Realizing that you hadn't seen Johnny's text yourself, you patted your pockets fervently. All empty.

"Shit!"

"I'll call it."

After retrieving your phone from inside the freezer—you didn't even want to know how you'd left it in there—you and Donghyuck grabbed all your bags and rushed down to meet your road trip crew. All ten of you weren't going to fit into one car, so you were splitting up between three in order to have a reasonable number of vehicles in town for the week: Johnny's, Taeil's, and Yuta's.

Johnny was leaning against the trunk of his old SUV, and pushed off it to give you each a hug, "Hey! Ready to road trip?"

"Sure, Johnny," you chuckled as he popped the hatch on the trunk. "Thanks for driving us."

"Of course, of course. Always glad to be team dad for three magical creatures and a human," he ruffled yours and Donghyuck's heads as you each loaded up your bags on top of the ones that were already in there.

"Three?" You asked.

Johnny was struggling trying to pull his hand back from the leafy tendrils that had wrapped around his fingers when he went to muss up Donghyuck's hair. When he'd finally gotten the limb back, he answered, "Oh yeah, Mark and I picked up a stray, so someone will have to sit with someone. Mark's already got shotgun, sorry."

The human opened up the back door, and Donghyuck and you peered in, just in time for Jungwoo's head to pop up from the very backseat, cell phone in hand.

"Finally! Thought this was lost to the ether down there!" He said triumphantly, then his gaze fell on you and your roommate. "Oh hey, Y/N, Donghyuck!"

"I was planning on napping, actually," Donghyuck took advantage of your stupefied silence to declare. "So I'll take the middle row."

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