STEP

CHAPTER 6

A glass of red wine splashes onto his face. The beautiful liquid continues to trickle off the tips of Luhan's hair onto the dining table. Lowering his head, Luhan was silent for a moment before lifting his head and directly splashing Chanyeol's red wine at the opposite party. He picks up his bag and stalks out the door without turning back.
Sorry, I have something way more important to attend to so I won't have the time to entertain you.

He glances at the huge wall clock as he walks out of the hotel before dashing out into the rain to flag a cab; it was around 10:05PM.
Digging out Yixing's white Lenovo mobile phone, he finds his own number in the list of contacts really quickly. Opening the car window to breathe in the moist air outside, Luhan waits for the person at the other end of the line to pick up.
"Hello?" Yixing's voice travels from the other end of the line, "You're done?"
"Are you at home now?" Luhan asks.
"Yes, why?" The opposite party says, absent-mindedly.
"You stay at home and don't go anywhere, I'll be back really soon." Luhan says loudly into the phone.

Yixing pulls the phone away from his ear for a short moment, as if he was avoiding Luhan's saliva, "Where would I go? Has your fever subsided?"
"I'm fine." Luhan says, "No matter what, just don't go anywhere else, I'll be back really soon. If anyone calls you, ignore them, especially Kris." Luhan suppresses down a cough.
"Why Kris?" Yixing pauses, "Did you drink again? Is Kris beside you right now? Pass the phone to him please."
"He's not here," Luhan furrows his brows, "I'm outside."
"You're outside?" Yixing doesn't understand, "Doesn't the dinner party end at the same time for everybody?"
"Don't ask anymore." Luhan tries to tolerate his slight fever, empty stomach and nausea, "Stay at home." He hangs up.

At 10:40PM, Baekhyun gets dragged along by the Japanese manager to chat while the company's manager was still apologizing for Luhan's mistake with a smile plastered onto his face. Kris grips onto Chanyeol as they stagger outside. Chanyeol makes a dash for the toilet when he couldn't control his nausea anymore and Kris gestures to tell Baekhyun to ignore them and go home first.

The rain gets heavier by the minutes. Kris pulls Chanyeol, who was pale, out the door and the window of a black Buick rolls down. An arm extends out from the car window, snapping its fingers.
"Hello, Yixing? Chanyeol's dead drunk; do we have medicine for hangovers back at home?" Kris looks at Chanyeol who was blabbering nonsense beside him as he flips open his wallet.
"I'm Luhan." The voice pants.
Startled, Kris hollers at the phone, "Where did you run off to?! Do you know what trouble you've caused to Chanyeol? Where are you now?"
"I..." Luhan bends down and clutches onto his knees for support. He turns back to see the long line of traffic stuck in the jam, "There's a traffic jam, I didn't know how long I had to wait so I got off the cab. I'm rushing home now."
"If that's the case, we'll talk later." Kris hangs up. Luhan looks at the phone, his face ghastly, and dials back.
"Sorry, the number you've dialed is busy." Luhan curses once, and dials his own number again.
"Sorry, the number you've dialed is busy." The same string of words come again from the phone. Luhan wipes his face in the rain and looks helplessly at the jammed roads.
"Yixing?" Tao looks at the caller ID blinking on the screen in the car, and places his phone to his ears.
"Tao, where are you now?" Comes Luhan's weak and panicked voice.

Furrowing his eyebrows, Tao eyes the caller ID again, "Luhan? You two took the wrong phones?"
Luhan stops running to catch his breath, "Where are you?"
"I'm on my way to the airport," Tao says, "I'm going to fetch a fellow townsman, I'm reaching soon." Tao peers out of the car window.
Luhan closes his eyes, giddy, "Fellow townsman? Who?"
"The person whom I told you about before..." Tao starts to nag, "The one who dances really well..."
Luhan interrupts, "We'll talk when we meet." Tao stares at his phone and wonders why he got hung up on so suddenly.
Wiping the blurred screen of the phone in the rain, Luhan starts to look through Yixing's contacts rapidly.
"Why don't you save phone numbers?!" Luhan trembles as he scrolls through. He finds Jongin's number, and calls him immediately.