Despite Bobby’s extravagant entrance, the trip did not start so smoothly. It was already 11:30 and for the last half an hour you had been arguing about who was driving with who. Why you weren’t allowed to chose who went in which car before the trip was a mystery. If you were allowed, then all of the commotion that occurred at the start of the trip wouldn’t have happened.

 

You wanted to be in Bobby’s car with Junhoe, Jinhwan and Lana. Anna wanted to be in the car with you. Lana didn’t mind riding without Jinhwan but Jinhwan was adamant that he was going to ride with Lana. Donghyuk prefered Bobby’s music taste and didn’t want to drive with Yunhyeong. Yunhyeong wanted to be with Hanbin so that Hanbin didn’t get stressed and if it were possible, Hanbin would have been in both cars, just so he could keep an eye on everybody.

 

“Well if me, Eden, Donghyuk and Anna ride with Bobby, then Hanbin, Jinhwan, Lana and Chanwoo can ride in Yunhyeong’s,” Junhoe shouted over all of the ruckus that was going on in the drive of your parent’s home.

 

Before anybody could argue against it, Junhoe was already pushing you and your bags towards Bobby, “We can always change at a service station if anybody wants to.”

 

And with that, everybody threw their bags into their designated car. Bobby sat in the driver’s seat with Junhoe in shotgun. You sat behind Junhoe with Donghyuk behind Bobby and Anna pulled the short straw of the middle seat. Sad times. It’s not her fault she stopped growing at 13. You felt bad for her but sure not bad enough to offer to swap. And during quick eye contact with Donghyuk, you figured that he was thinking the same thing.

 

You were finally all set to go. From the decision to go on a road trip, through the long week and to that moment. You were finally actually going and it honestly felt sort of surreal. You were actually going on a road trip with all of your friends.

 

And as you looked out the window, Bobby pulled away from your house and you watched it get smaller before the he turned the corner and it was no longer in sight.

 

If I were feeling pretentious, I would think about how I'm getting away from university preparation stress or say something like “goodbye reality, I’ll be back soon”. I would think about how I might ‘find myself’ or how I'm going to miss my parents despite not even knowing whether I truly will or not. But I'm really not feeling particularly pretentious so instead I’ll just disappoint the literature lovers by looking at my house and saying:

 

“Brb.”

 

Bobby quickly turned his head to look at you, “What did you say, Eden?”

 

I just said that out loud. Why did I do that? What even?

 

Anna looked over at you, waiting for you to reply. “Er, what, sorry? I said… BToB. Junhoe, your iPod is plugged in right? Play WOW,” you tried. You were normally quite good on the spot but saying ‘brb’ for no reason was inexcusably weird.

 

“I don't want to put on BToB, Drake and Future just came on,” Bobby said, looking at you momentarily in the back mirror, pouting.

 

“Oh, right! Well that's good too.” You weren't just saying that because of Bobby, you actually did like Jumpman a lot more than WOW and would rather keep what was playing on. You figured it was either stick with what you were saying or get out of the situation early and so decided to give your act up early with everybody else thankfully just ignoring that short inexplainable exchange.

 

Bobby’s eyes still watching you in the mirror, turned into two small crescents as he smiled and started singing along with his iPod and Donghyuk. The car bobbing up and down to the beat.

 

“Jumpman, jumpman, jumpman, them boys up to something”, accompanied by you, Anna and Junhoe singing the ‘ooh’ appropriately. This was exactly what you wanted from this trip.  

 

An abundance of memories and happy moments.

 

As Bobby’s iPod went through shuffle, the car just got progressively more and more rowdy, until you were driving down the motorway at midday, as fast as you could, screaming the lyrics to songs out of the windows. From Nicki Manaj’s ‘Anaconda’ to Towkio’s ‘Reflection’, you sang it all. And this happily continued until your phone rang at 1:30pm-ish.

 

“Hello? Lana? Are you alright?” you hit Junhoe’s neck and signalled him to turn the music down. On the other side of the phone, Lana had said that Yunhyeong needed the bathroom and Hanbin was car sick and that they were going to pull off and rest at the next service station.

 

After relaying this information to Bobby, Donghyuk used his phone to find out where the next service station was and you all began to keep an eye out for the exit.

 

********

 

“They're not even here,” Anna mouthed through the window to you as she looked around the car park with disdain.

 

“Well, I want food and I don't need them to hold my hand to the bathroom so I’m taking myself,” Donghyuk said before promptly swinging open the car door on his side and making his way over to the building.

 

Junhoe was already out of the car and standing around looking for the others with Anna and talking about something. The fact he would keep looking at you in conversation, told you he was talking about you. And in the car just you and Bobby remained.

 

Junhoe caught your eyes and nodded at you as if to say ‘take this opportunity whilst you have it’.

 

Right. That was your chance to start something, to set some type of mood for the two of you on this trip. You crawled over the car’s middle compartment and threw yourself into the front seat, “Hey gorgeous, come here often?”

 

He laughed, which was always a good sign.

 

“Seriously though, are you okay to keep driving? Aren't you tired?”

 

“Well if you sit in the front instead of Junhoe, I’d probably be more awake,” he replied.

 

“Why? What’s wrong with Junhoe?”

 

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