i've got 99 problems, and a ditch is one
venus in fursJongdae wakes up in a slightly muddy ditch, earth in his hair, on his clothes and plastered to his arms, deeply in his skin. There is a pounding in his head, possibly the worst headache he's had in his life, certainly the worst hangover he's ever had. His mouth is as dry as the Sahara desert, and he hadn't a clue on where he was.
Skull pulsating, he slowly dragged himself up one side of the ditch, grass sticking itself to his muddy, soaked through jean jacket. Come to think of it, he doesn't remember wearing that jean jacket to the start of the party, but he can't remember much in general, so he pushes the thought aside. He tries to rear back onto his knees to get a better view of what is going on outside of the ditch, but not to much luck, as moving in general sent waves of pain to his head. Crawling up it in the dark was tiring, especially when he was already exhausted, feeling like a ton of bricks had been dropped on his back and legs. He moved slowly, like wading through molasses, but progress was made.
Eventually he manages to drag himself up and out of the ditch, grass scraping off minimal amounts of mud from his body. It appears that it is still completely dark outside, a murky pitch black that envelops most everything around him. The moon didn't provide much light, the sky being an overcast indigo, with rippling clouds and a strong breeze that cut through the hot humid air. Most everything is covered in a layer of water and muck, and the same filth covers him. Finally free of the ditch, Jongdae checks his surroundings. The ditch is at the end of a field, a clearing in the forest that he recognizes borders the edge of his town. It's impossibly dense and dark, and there's no way for him to get out in this weather, without his phone or flashlight.
He sits down in the clearing, hoping that after a short rest he'd feel better, but by having stopped moving he is immediately hit with a heavy wave of drowsiness. Jongdae finds himself lying down in a mixture of leaves and grass, and sleep overtakes him too quickly for him to realize what was going on. However, he doesn't sleep for long, being awoken by shaking.
Jongdae jolts up, instantly regretting it as it only makes his head, and everything else, hurt more. He peers up to see someone vaguely familiar, though at the time and in his state he couldn't tell who, and the person extends a hand towards him, helping him up.
"Hey, bro, oh my god, are you alright?" The voice says, and it's familiar, not familiar enough to be Chanyeol or Zitao or Kyungsoo, but he has certainly heard it before, somewhere. Either way, the voice was slightly worried, but kind.
"What's going on?" He croaks, cringing at the roughness in his voice. His voice sounded completely shot, and trying to conjure up a reason why leaves him blank.
"A lot of happened, man. I guess I should explain, but I think it'd be better for you to be sitting down to take it all in." The owner of the voice says, and while Jongdae has not gotten a single good look at him in the dark blue light, he knows he's taller than him, but built like a stick.
"Where are we going?" Jongdae asks, and then winces. His voice sounds excruciatingly bad, and everything hurts, but he cannot piece together a single thing about that night.
"House. It's close, just a little longer." The voice says, and sure enough, Jongdae spots a glowing warm yellow light in the distance. He wants to breath a sigh of relief, but there is a ways to go and he realizes he needs to focus more energy into trudging forward and less into wild speculation.
In what seems like ages, they make it to the house, and in the light Jongdae could see so much more. Unfortunately, he rather wished that he couldn't see, as he looked quite the wreck. There was mud all over him, in his hair, in his clothes, on his skin, and what wasn't muddied was soaked through with what was (hopefully) rain water. In addition to this, there were bruises and scrapes littered all over his body, from his legs and torso all the way up to his face. This contrasted quite a bit with the person who had lead him into the house, who now upon getting a good look at, Jongdae realized was Chulgoo.
"You can shower off inside if you'd like." Chulgoo says, smiling warmly. Jongdae wants to hug the other teenager for this unexpected show of hospitality, but he figures this isn't a good idea as he is bloodied and covered in mud.
After a hot, long shower, Jongdae returns to the kitchen of the house, dressed in a pair of clothes that he isn't sure of origin, as they clearly aren't Chulgoo's (Chulgoo was a good three or so inches above Jongdae). In the kitchen there were four other people sitting at a round wooden table, two of which still looking quite ruffled. Chulgoo and Minsik both looked slightly more put together, although very tired and vaguely stressed out. Kyungsoo looked rather like a mad scientist, with wide, tired eyes and his hair (that usually was neat and near perfect) seemed to have gone through a hurricane. He had a thousand yard stare, and seemed to not be paying attention to anything that was going on. Zitao looked even more disheveled, hair still sopping wet, mud on parts of his glasses, and grass stains on his forearms. He was dressed in Chulgoo's clothes, which hung off of him limply, but he seemed chipper and cheerful to be in the house, happily sipping away at a steaming hot mug of tea.
"Well I'm glad you made it back in one piece." Minsik remarks, smiling at Jongdae, though the teenager has a feeling it's more about the fact that Chulgoo was incessantly smiling at him and less about Jongdae having not died.
"He's barely in one piece though." Zitao chuckles, beckoning Jongdae to sit down next to him at the table. When he does, the Chinese boy beams at him, a perfect picture of happiness.
"What happened?" Jongdae asks, still wincing at the sound of his voice. It's rough and scratchy, like sandpaper, and now it even hurts to speak. His head is still throbbing, and there is a certain ache in his hands and arms that has settled deep into his muscles.
Chulgoo's eyebrows go sky high, as if ready to blast out of the atmosphere, though obscured by his bangs. "You don't remember anything? Anything at all? Are you sure?"
Jongdae furrows his brow deep in thought. He tries his hardest to dig back, peel away memories, to remember what had happened, but he can only draw blanks. "No, I'm pretty sure I was blackout drunk and then I collapsed in a ditch, with this jacket on. What happened?"
Zitao whistles long and low, shaking his head, while Minsik gives him a pitiful expression and breaths out heavily. "A whole lot happened." Zitao finally says.
----
Jongdae runs a hand through his hair as he began the trek from his house to where the party for the second day of trashcon was being held. For some reason, he and his mates had agreed that trashcon would always take place in parks (the national park close to Jongdae's house being a favorite), though no one could actually remember why (most likely because they were drunk off of their asses when they schemed it all up). But if anything, Jongdae's ragtag group of friends enjoyed sticking to their own invented tradition (these seemed to be the only rules and social code they had any hope of following), and Jongdae was no different from them. He glanced up quickly at the sky, darkening, but not quite yet overcast, and prayed that it would not rain. No one liked a soggy trashcon.
He is greeted quite warmly by Minseok, Kyungsoo and Chanyeol, who were currently setting things up in the woods. Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were setting up tables, while Minseok brought out a handful of coolers. Trashcon was strictly a BYOB (or BYOW, bring your own weed) party, but Minseok was always gracious and kind enough to bring a cooler or two. How he got them back home when the police inevitably came (they always came, every single time, and at this point the police were as much a part of trashcon as the partiers) was a mystery to everyone, but he had been doing it for quite a few years now.
"Do you know who are the new people that are going this year?" Chanyeol asks Jongdae, who shakes his head. "Tradition" at trashcon held that all new people had to fist fight, but the teens there seemed to enjoy their own "boxing tournament" complete with the winner getting a jacket.
Small talk continues and Jongdae is happy to converse with his friends, but he finds that is mind is relatively empty. It's not that he considers himself a big thinker exactly-- but idle chitchat only seems to bore him tonight. He wanted action, or adventure, or alcohol (and whatever else he could get his hands on), but tonight, particularly action.
Those thoughts get put on the back burner though, because Zitao has arrived and as far as Jongdae is concerned, Zitao, possibly the antithesis of his friend group, is (nearly) as interesting as getting to fight someone. Near instantly he is next to the Chinese teenager, who happily hugs him and asks him how he's been, even though he had seen Jongdae less than twenty four hours ago. They spend the next hour waiting for people to show up and sharing beers (Zitao grimaces slightly at the taste at first, but doesn't say anything, so neither does Jongdae) and chatting about what comes to mind (Jongdae, simple as he might come off, enjoys talking politics. Zitao, not so much).
By the time that a sizable number of people are in the park, bringing along bottles and thermoses and boxed wine (and in Woosung's case, a two gallon ziplock bag of whiskey (Hanbin apologizes profusely)), Jongdae and Zitao are thoroughly buzzed. Zitao is reading ty John Green quotes off of his phone, and as much as Jongdae loves Zitao, he doesn't love hearing about how teenagers are indestructible and adults are jaded when all he wants to do is get ed up.
And ed up he gets, managing to down an impressive amount of everclear (Chanyeol calls him a "straight savage", Hanbin gives him the phone number to their local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous) and gets his hands on a few pot brownies. Trashcon has always been about pure debauchery, and nothing more proves that than a large gang of hedonistic teenagers in a park getting wasted? And to Jongdae's group of friends, the best way to get "absolutely smashed" is to drink as much as physically possible in a park with fist fights and hot girls and your friends.
Zitao is near instantly right back at his side when the first fight happens. It's two freshman, one Jongdae knows from soccer (Gunhee, he remembers later) and the other is some far flung cousin of someone's. Both are ty at it, anyone could tell they had never fought, and probably wouldn't ever again (so many freshman are , it's a shame, Chanyeol remarks). But if the newcomers, people who somehow heard or were invited, were invited (a new generation, Minseok warbles, pretending to wipe a tear away), that meant the better fights were coming.
And the fights go on and on, some taking ages and others ending in mere seconds. Luhan (they had completely forgotten the exchange students were new until about two days before that night) versus Yixing versus Zitao is the last before people who had done this before take over, and Jongdae can feel worry begin to ball up in the pit of his stomach, because he cared a little more about Zitao than he'd like to let on, and Zitao was about to fight two people.
It turns out rather quickly that Jongdae's fears are fantastically unfounded. Yixing (the boy never really posed a threat) was a little too much of a pacifist to really punch all that hard, Luhan was drunk out of his mind, and couldn't land a single blow, and Zitao, it turned out that he could knock out a Chinese in about two seconds flat. Between whooping and hollering, Jongdae looks at Zitao, who has a slight sheen to his skin, and smiles as widely as possible.
----
Jongdae isn't smiling an hour from then. Instead his jaw is clenched as tightly as he can and his brows are furrowed. The tallest tree in the entire park looms to his left, and obscures much of the moonlight that now pours over them, dappled and with s blueish hue. Jongdae is far too invested in winning the fight to pay good attention to the crowd around them, pushing in, or the gorgeous scenery past that. Instead, he focuses on landing a blow or two more on the guy in front of him and that Sehun has screamed "world star!" at least twice.
Jongdae finishes the fight with a blank mind, ruddy fists and a scrape somewhere above his eyebrow. If he were paying better attention, he would have seen his name be etched quickly into a frisbee with a hot knife and tied to one of the taller branches of the enormous tree. Instead he focuses his attention on his bandmates, Hanbin and Zitao, who are all grinning and congratulating him, whooping and hollering a little louder than anyone else there.
Hanbin takes a photo of Jongdae and Zitao with his Polaroid camera after the fight, both rather sweaty, the sky having gone dark a while ago, Jongdae in the denim jacket and pin and Zitao with his thick glasses and flannel, both holding four locos. Zitao regrets drinking a four loco near instantaneously (however, this is the appropriate reaction to drinking a four loco (Chanyeol managed to get his hands on the original, "more dangerous" ones that taste exactly like 2005)), as he manages to almost retch on not only Jongdae, but Woosung and Hanbin as well (the two take this as a cue to go to some other part of the party, most likely to go make out somewhere).
Meanwhile, Jongin has taken an astounding number of shots (he's lost count after eleven, and he's not sure if he is going to have alcohol poisoning or not at this point). Every time he nears Kyungsoo, he ends up taking another shot (this is only exasperated by the fact that he has been near Kyungsoo for a solid hour now), and after the first seven, he thinks it's a good idea to keep going.
After shot number ten (or so, everything is a blur now and numbers are no longer a legitimate concept), Jongin realizes that not only is he a handful of seconds from being black out drunk, but that this would be the perfect time to make his move. He saunters the five yards over to Kyungsoo (in reality he is drunkenly stumbling at a questionable pace), and slips an arm over the shorter man's shoulder. Instantly his heartbeat quickens and his head clouds and Jongin thinks that tonight, he would finally go and pursue the boy he had been crushing on for more than a few years now. Kyungsoo looks up at him with a look, that if he wasn't drunk, would be interpreted as a mix of horrified and confused. Jongin, however, is fantastically drunk, so he chooses to see this facial expression as one of wanting, pining for something that had been building up for years.
"What the is going on?" Kyungsoo asks, his face contorting slightly in question. He has not bothered to turn his entire body away from his game of flip cup, instead just twisting his neck.
"I'm gay." Jongin blurts out. He did not mean to say this. He did not want to say this. Jongin didn't even believe that he was 100% gay. This was a mistake.
Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow. Jongin sincerely hopes he couldn't hear him over the sounds of a girl screaming. "You're what?"
The gears in Jongin's skull are turning as fast as possible. He is scared that they are audible to the outside world. "I'm game for some flip cup!"
Kyungsoo nods and smiles and Jongin is pretty damn sure that he just suffered from a minor heart palpitation. "Sweet. Join my team. We're team Park Chanyeol."
Chanyeol, who is not at all on Kyungsoo's team, sends them a solid glare. Jongin wants to retort to this to protect his precious owl man, but he realizes not only that he doesn't have a single come back, but that he is so hammered already that he cannot even play flip cup.
This puts a damper on everything for Jongin for a short while, but flip cup doesn't last long when you're in a park surrounded by miscreants and hooligans smashed on a cornucopia of illicit substances. Instead, there are fireworks and fire (Chanyeol has managed to get a full bush of some plant in flames, and Kyungsoo is near certain that that is all different kinds of illegal) and destruction of all kinds (Sehun has broken open a wasp's nest and has been chased by a pack of the ers for at least fifteen minutes now). When one particularly big and bright firework launches skywards, Jongin slips his hand over Kyungsoo's (he gets the idea from Jongdae, who seems to be doing the same to Zitao). He glances hopefully over to Kyungsoo, who has no reaction at all to this.
Jongin then decides (drunkenly) that that doesn't mean that Kyungsoo is against all of this and thinks that perhaps he should move things further. He slowly, slowly inches his head over towards Kyungsoo's shoulder, going at the pace of a tortoise only because he is certain that he'd faceplant if he went normal speed. Once he makes contact with the aforementioned shoulder, he cannot help but smile, looking up at the fireworks (Minseok and Chanyeol seem to be doing a good job with them, as no one has been hit by one yet) and thinks, Wow Jongin, good job, this is super romantic and actually successful.
Jongin feels the shoulder shift and looks up a bit. "What the hell are you doing?" Kyungsoo asks, eyebrows narrowing with something that is more aggressive than concern.
Jongin pulls his head slightly off of Kyungsoo's chest, partially because this brings his face far closer to Kyungsoo's but also because he was worried that if he kept his head on the shorter man's shoulder he would be pummeled to the ground and through the earth's crust. He says something, and he's near sure that it is completely unintelligible as he is too drunk and too nervous to make any sense. He just hopes Kyungsoo can't feel his heartbeat.
And because Jongin is the sappiest in the entire universe, he chooses that moment to bring his mouth to Kyungsoo's. He's sure that if he wasn't piss drunk and in the middle of a festival celebrating underaged hedonism with two teenagers burning things a few yards away from them that this would be sweet and romantic. Instead, Kyungsoo wrinkles his nose (Jongin hopes that this is because of the acrid scent of whatever the Chanyeol, Sehun and Minseok have set ablaze now) ((It's not)) and then pushes away. Jongin really wanted this to be nice, but it's hard for things to work out when someone has carved "420 BLAZE IT " on the tree they are leaning against. Kyungsoo has this distressed look on his face and Jongin gets up, scrambling frantically in the grass because his limbs are traitors and he is too hammered for all of this, and decides he must leave. He stumbles his way as quickly as possible out of the park, but the forest is dark and he's not exactly in the best condition to find his way out. People try to ask him something (all of his attention is funneled into finding a way to get out, so he hasn't a clue on what they've said), but he shrugs them away, and continues his way back home.
Dear lord this was such a failure, he thinks to himself, the last few minutes continuously looping through his head. He knows this won't go down well. Kyungsoo will be weirded out, then he'll tell the others, and the others won't talk to him, not even Sehun or Yixing. If all else fails, I can change my name to Kai and move to Mexico to start my own coconut exporting business, he thinks to himself, because planning the future seems to ease his worries for the present.
Jongdae watches the entire thing from where he stands, arm draped artfully over Zitao, beer in his other hand. Yixing is trying to do a keg stand to the left of him, and Jongdae has almost been kicked in the neck twice (Luhan apologizes for his drunker friend, and Jongdae truly feels sorry for the Chinese, as Yixing seems to be his partner in crime at all times). "That's so ing gay."
Zitao looks at him with a look of vague concern (Kyung and Kris also give him this look, but he ignores them). "That was the saddest, most teenage angst ridden thing that has happened the entire year, and that's your reaction?"
Jongdae would give a slow nod, but Yixing almost thwaps him in the head again, so he settles for a swift duck. "Still, very homo."
Zitao was going to respond, but is interrupted by the faint sound of sirens. "Are there cops coming?"
Even though he spoke quietly, near instantly everyone in the park froze after the words were uttered. The air was still and thick and the collective fear of a large mass of teenagers was palpable. As the sirens blare again, louder this time, everyone scrambles. Any alcohol left is quickly downed, substances either burned, used or hidden, and high schoolers begin to run off before the cops could arrive.
Joonmyeon felt bad, he really did, for all of this. But breaking up a high school party draped in a disguise was better than facing the wrath of his father. As all of the teenagers ran off, either trying to leave the woods or go deeper into them, he removed his cap and scrubbed off the makeup. Somehow, everyone had bought his disguise, even though Suho didn't seem to be that believable of a name.
"Son, where are the teenagers?" Siwon asks, placing a hand firmly on Joonmyeon's shoulder. Joonmyeon gulped and hoped that this would be enough.
"They all scattered. Plenty are in the woods." Joonmyeon croaks. His heartbeat is fast and arrhythmic and this only reminds him that he will never want to be a police officer.
Siwon grumbles something and leaves, and Joonmyeon decides it's time to go home. As the sky begins to let loose a torrent of rain, he just hopes that everyone at the party ends up alright.
----
Zitao has never considered himself athletic, but tonight he is sprinting faster and longer than he'd ever imagined he could. Jongdae and Zitao dash through the forest and find themselves near a ditch. As the footsteps of a police officer begin to crunch nearer to them (the beam of their state supplied flashlight is still evident even through the rain that has now started to soak everything) Jongdae panickedly looked towards Zitao for an idea, and the Chinese teenager is certain that he'd never seen that facial expression from the other in his life. Before he could suggest anything, Jongdae grabs his wrist and slides down the side of the ditch.
They are covered in grass stains and now soaked through to the bone in rainwater, and while Zitao is sure that both of them are now bruised and scraped, they are safer. They lie on hard soil and grass, pressing themselves as close to the hill they just fell down, close enough to nearly become on with the earth, and neither of them are sure that they aren't doing just that, as mud joins the mix of plant life and water on their very beings.
Jongdae peers up just enough to see a beam of a flashlight pass over a cloudy lilac sky, and his heart races faster. He prays to every pantheon of gods ever believed in and sincerity hopes that the beam of light will not go over him or Zitao and as if the spirits and deities are truly listening, the light never touches them.
The rain only pounds down harder, and Jongdae can barely hear the sound of footsteps of the police leaving through the onslaught of rain. But as he lies in the muck and grass, a wave of tiredness washes over him. He's already soaked to the bone, and with a lack of movement, all of the alcohol he has consumed that night hits him like a ton of bricks. He forgets completely that Zitao was with him in the ditch, and sinks a little further into the soft earth, more comfortable now. Zitao scrambling up and out of the ditch does not register for him.
----
AN
Sorry that my update schedule is out of whack, I'm trying v hard to get back on track. This chapter is all based off of me and my friends' experiences at our Trashcon. Ngl I really like writing the ty one sided Kaisoo.
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