Mission Wall-E || Jakehoon

Sixteen: Walk alone

Some things are unexpected. For instance, your parents finding out you're traveling with strangers across the country, or finding out you actually really like those strangers, and for some reason they make you feel both too much and too little.

But the real beginning of unexpected things, all happened within the five hours starting from the minute the four boys arrived in Thailand, hoping off a train they definitely weren't allowed to be on, feet stumbling against the ground and rushing off down and behind trees that stood twenty feet away from the tracks. They all spilt up at the trees base. Ultimately being the start of the unexpected. When you could see the hurricane beginning to come back at you, threatening to pull you back in from the calm eye. Making you realize you should have valued is calmness way more than you had.

Jay had moved first, going in the direction he was sure that the nearest grocery store was. Then went Jake who never really specified where he was going, just saying 'he'll find something fun' in the town half a mile down the track. Then Heeseung, who had planned to meet up with people he knew in the country, not too far away, and Sunghoon... he kinda just stood there, ending up wandering around towards the direction he saw Jake and Jay head to.

He hadn't really had genuine alone time in a while. It was nice, honestly, only being able to hear his own footsteps and breathing. Not hearing teasing, or puns, or someone doing a livestream or screaming about some conspiracy theory. They say silence helps a mind within ruckus. He figures it's true. Cause it seems like it's a lot less crowded around him now. And being around conversation and friends all day every day, to just be alone with the sound of wind was more exhilarating than he thought. Maybe he just forgot how introverted he was with all the socializing he'd been doing. He just hadn't seemed completely drained like he usually would when hanging out with someone like he did before the trip. Which was weird, but fine and most likely a good thing.

He remembers one time when he and Sunoo went to a concert together and he thought he'd be completely exhausted afterward, but he wasn't. Which reminds him of now. That day was really fun too. He remembers his mom driving them both because neither of them had a license yet, and they blasted music the entire way there. And how Sunoo kept talking about he'd be "breathing in the dead skin cells" of the artists that they'd be seeing, which was weird but very funny within the moment. And when they actually got to the concert they made friends with two girls in the line to get in, who were super cool and Sunghoon even talked to them a couple of times within the few months after the concert. And then Sunoo cried his eyes out the second the concert actually started, and he let him hold his hand with possibly the hardest grip ever while he screamed his head off. Really the only bad part about the night was how he accidentally ate an expired ice cream from the shop next door while they waited for his mom to get them, and he ended up throwing up on the side of the road. But even that was funny and memorable.

As his feet stepped against the pavement of a small road surrounding by tiny shops and buildings, he smiled, then stopped and frowned. He almost forgot about that night. Really he forgot about a lot of things he and Sunoo have done together up until this moment, as he stared at the small run-down town.

He really missed him. Yeah, he annoyed him for like a year before the trip. But that honestly could be his fault. He was the only person he ever talked to for his whole high school career outside his parents and skating couch. Anyone could get annoyed by that. Even if Sunoo is a tad bit too clingy at times. And it's not his fault that Sunghoon has odd interests and hobbies that he doesn't find all that interesting to talk about. And maybe he was just projecting his frustration around not letting himself get close to someone on him for a while. Just maybe.

"Hello, welcome to the black lotus."

His head turned at the person behind the counter in the shop he walked into. He had tan skin and almost white dyed hair and had tattoos running from his arms to his neck. And he definitely didn't know his level of confusion. Maybe he should have tried to learn some Thai before they came.