White night.
At half past 9, Kim Taeyeon drew the heavy maroon drapes to a close and slid under the white covers with her phone in hand. The device was cold, having been untouched for an entire day now. It had been an exceptionally busy day - meetings after meetings for her upcoming album release, rushed breaks in between, a steadily building headache at the back of her head. Still, it was much more productive than she had expected, and Taeyeon was glad that plans were going smoothly.
Now that she was nestled comfortably in the messy sheets on her bed, she truly felt the ache coming from her sore feet. It took only a mere few minutes of scrolling through social media before she released a wide, loud yawn, twisting and turning her body, phone slipping out of her grasp while doing so. She picked it up again.
9.41pm.
Something about the timing felt awfully familiar. The gears in Taeyeon's mind shifted slowly, struggling to make something out of it when she's already halfway into dreamland.
9.42pm.
Oh. Oh. The call always came at 9.46pm. If she was lucky, it would be a spam of text messages that she could easily ignore. In worst case scenarios, someone - whoever he was with - would speed dial her. His parents took up the first and second speed dial, his brother the third, and she was apparently the fourth (something she had never known until the very first time he got drunk and the bartender informed her) though she never understood how she was still the fourth speed dial even after all this while.
And, perhaps, she didn't have the heart to tell him to change it.
Taeyeon's lids gradually grew heavy. Another yawn slipped past her parted lips. Just at the fringes of sleep, her phone buzzed and she jerked wide awake.
10.06pm. Incoming call from Jongdae.
"Hello? Taeyeon Noona?"
She frowned. "Jongdae? Why are you calling this late?"
It took Jongdae a moment to answer her. Taeyeon could hear incessant mumbling in the background, scraping of chairs, and then, suddenly, Jongdae snapping at whoever was whining. It was silent, almost at once.
"Sorry," Taeyeon could nearly picture Jongdae bowing politely on the other end. There was a resigned sigh, followed by obvious hesitance. "Baekhyun... He had a little too much to drink. He tried contacting you, but his phone's battery was dead and he insisted on me calling you. I can head back to the dorm with him, but he has been mumbling your name since an hour ago, and we all know how stubborn he is."
Mistaking her silence as reluctance, Jongdae spoke up again, "You must be very tired after-"
"No, it's fine." Taeyeon interrupted. She was overwhelmed with fatigue, but the thought of Baekhyun sprawled over a bar counter, mutttering her name over and over again, caused her stomach to twist in discomfort. How was she to leave him alone like that? Despite the countless times this had happened, she got up nonetheless and grabbed her keys. "Text me the location."
//
Baekhyun, as it turned out, wasn't as drunk as Taeyeon had expected. He was unsteady on his feet, but she didn't have to carry his entire weight with her at the very least. God knows how she was to piggyback him home.
He was, also, unexpectedly quiet.
She recalled the moment he caught her eye in the bar, the way his dark brown orbs literally brightened with such childlike joy. He had let her drag him down from the stool and ignored Jongdae completely. The latter had thrown Baekhyun a weak glare, before proceeding to sigh heavily and ruffle his hair in adoration. Jongdae looked like he was ever ready to share some of Baekhyun's pain.
