kicks ✓ || namgi || k.th

022: difficult

chapter 22: difficult
location: pittsburgh, pennsylvania, day 1

When Namjoon woke up, there were two things he immediately noticed.

The first was that he had a pounding headache.

The second was that he was in the van.

He tried to stretch as much as he could and then realized a third thing: Yoongi was right next to him, asleep.

The entire contents of last night's activities washed over Namjoon's brain. He yawned, then stretched, then immediately regretted stretching. But he had to sit up, and so he did, looking over the van. Yoongi was curled up like a kitten right next to him. Hoseok was in the row in front of them, and he could see Jimin's orange haired head in the next row. Where were the others? He stood up a bit and saw Jungkook was on the floor, as well as Seokjin. With this better vantage point he could see Taehyung in the passenger seat up front.

But who had driven the car? And where were they?

"Yoongi," he whispered, shaking the smaller man's shoulders, and the other part of last night washed over Namjoon. He immediately blushed. Shit. Yoongi had come onto him, just a bit. The last thing Namjoon remembered was Yoongi kissing him, and vaguely giving the car keys to --

"Sara." He checked the driver's seat, but there was nobody there. When he looked outside, he saw it was midday, and they were in a parking lot of some grocery store called Giant Eagle. The keys were in the ignition, and the van was on, but it wasn't in park, and the windows were cracked which meant they weren't dead by carbon monoxide poisoning (thank God!)

"Yoongi, dude, you really gotta wake up." Namjoon shook Yoongi's shoulders again. What if Yoongi didn't wake up? What if his medication --

Yoongi groaned, long and loud, and then he opened one eye. "Fuck off, Joon."

"Yoongi, I just need you awake. Who's the most sober around here?" Namjoon finally stepped around Yoongi, over Jungkook, and opened the side door. He ran around the side of the van and jumped into the driver's seat. Taehyung was asleep; Namjoon shook his shoulder. "Come on, dude. Wake up."

Taehyung opened one eye. He seemed to be okay, at least better than Yoongi. "Joon-hyung? Where's Sara?" he slurred.

"I'm going in the store, I will be right back." Namjoon turned off the van. "Do not let anybody else in. Got it?"

"But Sara..."

Namjoon didn't get any response other than that, but he couldn't wait. He took the money he had and ran into Giant Eagle. He emerged victorious a half hour later with painkillers, bottles of water, three bunches of bananas, and bagels. He then started the van, drove to the nearest hotel with a vacancy sign, and got them two rooms.

Both Taehyung and Jimin were awake and sober enough to drag the others into their rooms. Yoongi immediately went back to sleep. Hoseok did so, but not before throwing up. Seokjin stayed awake and ate a bagel, but stayed in bed. Jungkook collapsed onto the bed and started snoring rather loudly.

Namjoon brought Taehyung a banana. "Eat this. How do you feel?"

"My head is pounding, but I don't feel like I'm going to throw up." Taehyung paused. Someone was throwing up again in one of the bathrooms. "Well, not yet, anyway."

"We all got wasted. I gave the keys to Sara. Do you know where she went?"

Taehyung paused. Then, he thought for a moment. The last time he had seen her, they had been talking at the bar. He had no clue what they had been talking about. At some point, he had probably fallen asleep...or done something else, who knew? He couldn't remember.

"I'm guessing she's somehow the reason we all ended up back in the van," Jimin said, grabbing a banana and sitting down. "But who is she? She was just flirting with you, wasn't she?"

Taehyung was still quiet. "Where are we?"

"Well, I checked inside the grocery. We're in a city called Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania. We'll have to check Hobi's maps and see where that is. But I think we need to find another university and do some more research. Taehyung, didn't she give you her number?"

"She didn't give me her number, but she did give me an email." Taehyung still had the small note, stuffed away in his luggage. "I need one of those throwaway emails from Yahoo or Hotmail."

"Okay, cool. I've bought us a couple of recovery days here. Tonight, we sleep and recover. Tomorrow, we go to the nearest university and we email her, see what information we can get. She said her last name was Dinah. I can look up some stuff, too. Not that we'll find anything, but she must have somehow stayed in Rochester. Maybe we'll get a phone number over the Internet, so..."

"This isn't adding up," Jimin said, eating another banana. "It makes sense how we all ended up in the van. But I'm assuming we're light years away from Rochester now. How did we get here? And without Sara?"

"We can't know until we ask her." Taehyung gulped. He really liked Sara, but it felt like there was a lot she was hiding. He would have to email her, and then wait for the truth.