[Neo Zone] Population: 23 Kids

8 Minutes

Taeil looked up from his phone, just now realizing why the basement was so quiet. He was the only one down there, along with Yuta who was playing with Leon and Louis. Knowing that questioning everyone's absence would probably summon them, Taeil wasn't going to ask or look at the whiteboard.

"Since the kids aren't here, want to finish that show we were watching?"

Yuta tilted his head, thinking for a moment.

"Don't we have four episodes left?"

"Yeah. We've been watching it for months and have only gotten through six episodes. If we don't finish it tonight, I don't think we ever will."

The reason it was taking them so long was because one: some of the content in the show was not something they would ever show to Jungwoo and younger, and two: when there's 23 people sometimes it's just nice to have something that's only between two people. And that was this show.

"I'll get the popcorn."

Yuta removed Louis from his lap and detached Leon's claws from his hoodie, bounding upstairs while hoping no one would get suspicious and think to join them. Taeil set down his phone and got out the laptop they used for movies, getting the show set up.

Yuta was back with one large bowl within three minutes, plopping down next to Taeil on his bed without spilling it somehow. Louis got himself situated back on Yuta's lap, Leon now curling up next to Taeil to watch with them. The two cats were terrible at staying awake while watching something, so they were quickly asleep.

Taeil hit play and their binge watching started, only stopping once for a bathroom break. Because it was the last four episodes, stuff was going down. For real. At one point the main character was tripping on acid, and nothing made sense as they tried to piece together what happened that night while he pieced it together.

Even if someone else showed up in the basement, they physically would not have been able to make themselves stop for the night. It just wouldn't have been possible.

Until Taeil's phone started ringing in the middle of the single most dramatic scene of the night.

"It's my grandma, I've got to answer this."

Yuta sighed and paused the episode right as someone was about to get shot, and Taeil removed Leon from his lap so he could take the call somewhere else. Yuta groaned when he saw they only had eight minutes left of the show, really hoping Taeil's grandma just needed to know if he liked beans more than kimchi or something stupid.

It was made very clear that it was not something that insignificant when Taeil hadn't returned in fifteen minutes. And then the fifteen minutes turned into thirty. Yuta was struggling to stay awake as it approached almost an hour since they paused. Whose grandma calls this late at night anyways?

What didn't help was the headache Yuta was slowly gaining from staring at a screen in the dark for so long. At this point it felt like a semi truck had crashed into his skull and didn't have the courtesy to run it over.

Eight minutes. That's all they had left in the entire season. Now Yuta didn't even feel like finishing it.

Yuta opened his eyes when he heard Taeil coming back, an extremely apologetic look on his face.

"I am so sorry. She thought she misplaced her medicine and was panicking because she hates not taking it on time, and then when she found it she wouldn't stop talking and I felt bad just cutting her off like that."

"It's fine."

Taeil frowned. "I'm sorry." He said cutely, Yuta cringing.

"I'm sorryyyyyyyy." Taeil repeated in an even higher pitched voice, jumping onto the bed, grabbing Yuta's hand and using it to shake his arm.

"I'm not upset, can we just finish this?" Yuta motioned to the computer that had turned itself off waiting, so Taeil quickly fixed that and started it back up. Of course he re-winded a bit so they could get back into the feel of the climax before someone got shot.

Taeil was lucky those eight minutes were worth waiting for.