[Neo Zone] Population: 23 Kids

Skipping School

"Why does Shotaro get to stay here?" Chenle asked, eyeing his blanket covered form with a tinge of jealousy. He would've loved to stay in bed all day.

"Because Mrs. Suh called the school pretending to be his Mom and got him out for a few days." Kun explained, nudging his cousin toward the stairs for him to get going.

"Can she pretend to be my Mom and get me out of school?"

"Nope, now get going."

"Love you, Taro milk tea."

Shotaro held up a finger heart in response, but Chenle missed it as Kun pushed him up the stairs.

The two cousins left the basement, the last to do so. Shotaro was so far from sleeping in like Chenle thought he was that you could basically say he had pulled an all-nighter if you didn't count the two hours of sleep he'd gotten.

He couldn't get the muffled sounds from yesterday to stop playing through his mind, and the images his mind had come up with to substitute from not seeing anything weren't helping.

At this point he practically felt numb.

He waited until he could hear the last of the kids going to school leave before dragging himself out of bed, muttering a small apology to Leon when he accidentally startled him. Without bothering to change, he trudged up the stairs and took a seat on the stool behind the counter.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" Johnny greeted, Shotaro just shrugging.

Mrs. Suh pulled him into a hug and fixed his hair, pressing a kiss to his head.

"I called the school and took care of everything. They gave you three days, but if you need more I'll work something out."

He nodded as she pulled away to go back to work. Taeyong and Yuta were unaccounted for at the moment, but Shotaro figured Yuta had walked with everyone to school like he normally did. Taeyong, on the other hand, could've been anywhere and nowhere at the same time.

When Yuta returned, he instantly ran up to Shotaro and hugged him tightly. He eventually adjusted himself so he was sitting next to him, his arm still protectively wrapped around him.

The two stayed like that for most of the day, only helping if they needed to. It turns out Taeyong had been upstairs working on new flyers, so he ran around putting those up like he wanted to and multiple other things to keep himself busy.

While Yuta was wiping down tables after the lunch rush, Shotaro felt something tugging at his wrist. Thinking he had accidentally left the basement door open and let out Leon or Louis, he looked towards the ground. Definitely not one of the cats.

It took him a minute to realize it was his bracelet tugging on his wrist in the direction of the back door. Making the quick excuse of going to take a walk, Shotaro exited out the back door, the rest of the 00 line hiding behind the building.

"Shouldn't you be in school?"

Haechan scoffed, "When did you become our Mom?"

Jeno smacked the back of his head, addressing Shotaro with a softer tone. "We thought you needed to get out, so here we are."

"The bracelet tug did work though, right? Because I wanted to send in a beetle but Jaemin wouldn't let me." Renjun asked.

"Yeah, it worked."

"I told you a dancing beetle would've been terrifying and Mrs. Suh would've flipped." Jaemin said, Renjun rolling his eyes.

"I never said it was going to be dancing, YangYang did."

"We're missing the point. We came to get Taro out of there, and now we're going to go be juvenile delinquents." YangYang pointed out, trying to get them all back on track.

"I thought we were going to get ice cream and then come back and watch a movie." Jeno mumbled, tilted his head.

"We are, I just wanted to call us juvenile delinquents."

Jaemin just sighed and took Shotaro's hand, dragging him away from the cafe and to the nearest ice cream place. The rest of the 00 line followed, determining how much time they had before they had to meet up with the kids who didn't skip school so it would look like they didn't skip. No one was in the mood for a lecture from the parent line.

Turns out smearing whipped cream on each others faces and almost getting kicked out of the establishment was exactly what Shotaro needed.