ʟᴏᴠᴇSTAY ֶָ֢𖹭 ˢᵏᶻ ᵃᵘ

¹⁴ 𖹭 ᵗʰᵉ ʷᵃᵛᵉ

「 ʷᵒʳᵈ ᶜᵒᵘⁿᵗ 𖹭 ³,⁵²² 」
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⋅ POV⋅
⋅⊰ MEI ⊱⋅

"Okay, let's not panic–"

"There are three STAYs in this room and one competitive Hwang Hyunjin in my DMs; what do you mean 'Let's not panic'?"

"Oh, I was treading more along the lines of you not killing me for making- what I thought would be- a harmless joke to Hyunjin. But if you feel the need to address this in the side of your brain where the uncontrollable and animalistic STAY lives, then by all means-"

"'What side'? It's Stayville on both sides up here!" I exclaimed with wide eyes as I gestured wildly in response to Hannah who was officially witnessing my psycho-STAY side for the first time. "You know what- this is so unfair. In my head, when I pictured myself being in a boy group fanfic, I was not being artistically threatened by the visual."

Asuka had burst into a fit of laughter at my panic as she simply watched Yukiko try to grab my phone to see the message for herself and for some reason I decided to trust her. Hannah was watching with an expression that was a perfect half-and-half mixture of shock and amusement as Yukiko's eyes fell upon my phone screen and screamed her little heart out despite being Seungmin-biased. This caused Asuka to laugh even harder and it was at this moment I realized she had stolen one of my dad's beers from our fridge at some point after her and Yukiko arrived, which made more sense as to why she was unusually bubbly.

"What do I do? Wait, do you think he's actually upset?" I frowned as I gazed over at Hannah.

"I thought you were Chan-biased; why are you flipping out more over this than when Chan started messaging you?" Asuka spoke up when her laughter died out a little and Yukiko returned my phone to me so she could remove the beer bottle from Asuka's hand just as she went to take another sip. "Hey!" The young woman complained loudly, to which Hannah laughed and Yukiko ignored, keeping the alcohol at a safe distance from our tipsy friend.

"Because Chan wasn't lowkey threatening me," I defended with slightly narrowed eyes in whisper-scream as if the sister of the man-in-question weren't sitting centimeters away from me at the moment.

Hannah shook her head, dark bangs lightly falling over her temples from behind her ears as she grinned in amusement. "No, I'm sure he was just using this whole situation as an excuse to message you because I've mentioned you so much and he's curious," she tried to explain. "Also he doesn't really have any friends who have a passion for art like he does so I think maybe he's just excited?"

"No offense to Mei here," Asuka began, causing my wide eyes to drop into deadpanned half-lids at the introductory statement, "But Hyunjin is so famous, can't he just go befriend, like, Salvador Dalí or something?"

"Sure, if he has a time machine," Hannah shrugged sarcastically though she kept her facial expression so casual and serious that I almost questioned it.

"Why, what happened?" Asuka asked in concern, eliciting a deep sigh from my own chest.

"It deeply unsettles me that you are not kidding right now and you genuinely don't realize Salvador Dalí has been famously dead for thirty-five years now," I responded, noticing as Asuka stared back at me in shock, pausing in raising the beer bottle to her lips. "But I will take into account the fact that you're drunk right now, and I'm just impressed you even got his name right, so I'll try to suppress my rage."

Before Asuka could respond, Yukiko piped up randomly with her own input, silence following immediately after.

"I got straight D's in Art Class."