[Neo Zone] Population: 23 Kids

On the News

For Doyoung to be running down the streets in a full sprint, it had to be for something good. Especially if he ran into Ten coming from the opposite direction in front of the cafe.

"You saw it too?" Ten asked, Doyoung nodding as he struggled to catch his breath.

Knowing nothing else needed to be said, the two of them walked into the cafe and headed straight to Jaehyun, barely able to wait for him to finish with the customer.

"What's-"

"Where's Shotaro?" Ten interrupted.

"Hello to you too. He's in the basement. Why?"

Ten ran downstairs as Doyoung leaned against the wall, stealing a sip of Jaehyun's coffee.

"Shotaro's parents reported him missing and now the police are looking for him."

Not caring that they were in the middle of an actually legal game of twister, Ten came in like a hurricane.

"Shotaro, we gotta go now."

"No can do, we're on our second round of twister and we have one more to go for training before we start testing if we can get WinWin to lose." Sungchan explained.

"Spoiler: he can't lose. I'm serious, though, we gotta go."

"I thought dance was tomorrow." Shotaro pointed out, ducking as Lucas stepped over him to get to the red space.

"Yes, but your parents think you're missing and called the police. We have to go!"

Shotaro sat down on the twister mat, staring at Ten as he comprehended what that meant.

"But they don't know about the cafe. If they already know I'm not at the library I'll never be able to come back here if they ask where I was." Shotaro honestly looked like he was going to cry at that moment.

"Yeah but if you stay here the Suhs will probably get arrested."

"Not if they never find him." Jisung threw a blanket over Shotaro so he was hidden, the older pushing it off of himself.

"I don't want to go back. It's so much nicer here."

"What if I bring him back and say it was all a misunderstanding? They can't charge me for much because I'm a minor." Lucas offered.

"You're not getting in trouble for me. It's better if I go home and say I got wrapped up in a school project at someone's house. Then it's just me getting grounded." Shotaro interjected, throwing the blanket in a heap back to Jisung.

"But then you'll be stuck home. Who's going to give you hugs when you get caught in your head?" Sungchan asked, forgetting the game and sitting down on the mat.

Ten now felt like the bad guy for having to break the news to them, wishing Doyoung hadn't been so out of breath so he could've done it.

"I'll live." He gave Sungchan a reassuring smile, turning to Ten. "Sorry I won't be there for dance class."

"That's the least of my problems right now."

"What's your biggest problem right now?" Jisung asked.

"YangYang, always YangYang." Ten jokingly answered, Taeil coming downstairs with an excited smile.

"Hey, Shotaro, did you know you're on the news? That's pretty cool."

Ten glared at Taeil for not realizing the seriousness of the situation.

"Yeah, Ten was just telling us. Can you take over for me in twister? We're trying to get WinWin to lose."

"You know I can't go against WinWin. I think Renjun's free, though."

"Oh he'd love it if WinWin lost." Lucas piped up.

Shotaro stood up, giving them a small wave. "See you later. Good luck with WinWin."

"Love you, Taro milk tea." Jisung whispered, using Chenle's favorite nickname for him.

Ten walked out of the basement with him, his arm around his shoulders protectively when they got onto the streets.

"I know I shouldn't be encouraging this, but if you need to escape your parents, please do. Sneak out of the house in the middle of the night, you know we'll be up."

"As long as I don't get caught."

"Exactly."

They stopped on the corner of Shotaro's street when they got there, Shotaro already fidgeting with the bracelet on his wrist. At this rate the letters spelling out Taro were probably going to be worn off in a week.

"See you soon."

Ten pulled him in for a tight hug, Shotaro barely being able to keep himself together. There's no way all that silence waiting for him was going to be good.

He reluctantly let go of Ten and walked into his house, his parents stressing out in the kitchen. To say they were mad when he said he had been busy with a project at a classmate's house was underrated.

He's lucky he only got a two week grounding sentence, and that's because he argued if he couldn't go to the library to study his grades would drop. He hadn't been to the library in years.