no regrets 。taekai 。

xiii

"it's fine, i'll just find somewhere else to sit." jongin smiled at yixing who looked at him with a frown.

by now everyone was sat down in one of the three buses, well everyone but jongin. since exo had a odd number of people and jongin didn't have any other friends than the ones he sang and danced with everyday, he got left out of the little seating plan they did.

"are you sure? you don't feel excluded or anything, right? i mean we all were together basically all day, we owe you one. i can go sit down with minho so you can sit down next to yixing." jongdae kindly blabbered on, already reaching for his bag and lifting his lower half off the seat.

jongin pushed him down again and shook his head, "no seriously! it's fine, i don't know why you guys are being so considerate today." jongin laughed and waved his hands dismissively at his friends who were very much overacting and looking at jongin as if he was about to leave forever.

after a quick 'see y'all in a few hours', he walked down to the end of the bus, passing by some familiar faces. he saw minho sitting with jinki, both of them with hoodies over their faces and in a deep slumber. behind them on the last row was kibum on the four-seater, squished between members of a girl group jongin wasn't really familiar with and lastly alone on the pair of chairs in front of kibum's seat and beside minho and jinki's was taemin, his headphones plugged in and his eyes closed.

the boy had his head leaned against the window and moved his head slightly to the music he was listening to. a small smile appeared in jongin's face as he put his bag on the upper compartment and slowly sat down on the seat next to taemin, to not disturb the latter.

it didn't work, taemin got startled at the sudden body heat coming from his side, making him hit his head against the window he was leaning on as the bus started to move.

"ah!" taemin quickly pressed his palm to his temple making his headphones fall to his lap as he playfully glared at jongin, "is this how kids nowadays greet eachother?"

jongin chuckled, his mind still processing what had just happened in the span of a few seconds, "sorry, i was trying to not scare you but that backfires immensely didn't it?" he managed to say without letting a laugh escape his lips.

taemin grinned and plugged one of the headphones back into his ear and offered one to jongin. jongin did the same as the smaller boy and they left the conversation at that for the rest of the trip, silently enjoying taemin's very relaxing choice of music and eventually falling asleep with his head completely leaning against his own shoulder.

。。。

that was a bad idea, jongin soon learned as the bus stopped and he was woken up to an agonizing neck pain. he'd be sure he'd broken his neck if it wasn't for the fact that he could move it around if he really tried.

"are you okay? does it hurt that bad?" taemin asked, his voice dripping with worry as he tried once again to carry jongin's bag for him.

"it's fine, don't worry." he smiled and tried to look back a taemin to reassure the boy. another bad idea.

"ah! don't do that, you weirdo." taemin slapped jongin's now arched back as he tried to deal with the excruciating pain from his neck.

"how did i even sleep that way, kibum said it looked like i had broken my neck to rest on my shoulder." jongin tried rubbing his hand on his neck to try to soothe the pain.

"yeah i said that. i also said he looked like one of those ghosty monsters from horror movies that break their own necks to seem scarier," he contemplated a bit and than suddenly snapped his fingers, "ah! i should've taken a photo, it'd serve as a great meme for the groupchat."

taemin rolled his eyes as he put two resting hands on the abck of jongin's shoulders to more or less guide him throught check-in.

when they got to their rooms they decided each group would share one bedroom in each suite which was no problem for groups like shinee who could squeeze in the massive room, a little more complicated for exo whose room that was once gigantic without them inside turned minuscule with all the seven boys in it.

"well this is a problem isn't it." minseok chuckled awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck.

after a few more moments of silence they decided on a game of rock, paper, scissors to decide which lucky four would get to sleep in actual beds.

to absolutely no one's surprise jongin was the first one to lose, guaranteeing his spot in a futon mattress in front of the TV. after a few more rounds of yixing, jongdae and junmyeon putting the same hand gestures in the middle, jongdae finally won and yixing and junmyeon were left with the same fate as jongin.

yixing set up his futon mattress right next to jongin's one saying that night would be cold, totally not because he was scared of the tribe masks that decorated the living room's walls.

junmyeon quickly announced he would go over to super junior's room to have a drink with them, an obvious excuse to sleep in one of their extra beds.

yixing also left the room around 7PM to go eat something in a restaurant somewhere, the rest of the room's residents shortly following him to go eat too. jongin was also very tempted to follow them as his stomach screamed at him to get some food in his system but the pain in his neck was hindering him of even getting up from his very fluffly futon.

"are you not going?" jongin asked taemin, who suddenly left his room after all the rest of the others had gone to eat.

"no, i'm too tired to go out now." taemin poured himself a cup of water and quickly swallowed it in one gulp, "are you hungry?"

"starving." jongin breathed out.

"good. do you like chinese?"