“I told you it was going to be burgers.” Ten remarked smugly to Yubin as they all got settled in at a table. The managers had brought them to a local burger joint, deciding to embrace some American cuisine while they were there. Yubin rolled her eyes, scooting into her chair and taking a glance at the menu. “Look at the menu.” She said in response, not giving his words the light of day.

    The restaurant was fairly busy, with waiters moving around the space rushing to accommodate all their guests. Their waitress, a frazzled girl with blond hair pulled into a ponytail, held her notepad in her hands as she waited for everyone to get seated. “Anyone know what they want to drink yet? Or should I come with water first?” she prompted them in English.

    “Waters fine for now, thank you.” Yubin responded back, and the waitress nodded before disappearing into the kitchens. “Do you guys know what you want to drink for when she comes back?” Yubin asked the table, receiving various responses from the members. Donghyuck, who was seated beside her, nudged her softly to gain her attention, asking for a few translations of the menu.

    A few moments had passed with the group chatting among themselves when the waitress returned. With a bit of help from the other English speakers, everyone quickly ordered what the desired. “You know what’s funny,” Mark said suddenly, “There’s currently not one American in this group right now. But we’re in America.”

    “May Johnny hyung rest in peace,” Donghyuck responded dramatically with a shake of his head. Jaehyun snorted and leaned his elbow onto the table as he pointed across to Mark, who sat between Ten and Taeyong. “You know he had conflicting schedules.” Jaehyun stated when Mark grinned at Donghyuck’s reaction.

    “I know. But it doesn’t make it any less funny now doesn’t it?” Mark said back.

“Before we got on the plane he was sending me a bunch of sad stickers on kakao.” Ten added in, “he really wanted to come.”

Sungoh, who had been busy texting the other manager on Kakao, turned his attention to the group. “I tried to get the company to free up his schedule, but they just weren’t having it.” He stated in a dissatisfied tone.

“What’s he doing that’s so important, anyway?” Yubin asked. She hadn’t seen him moving around often, so she was clueless as to what kind of schedule he had.

“Some TV show appearances,” Sungoh said simply. Their waitress returned with their desired drinks before disappearing again. Yubin took her glass of sprite and sipped the drink through the straw, clearing as the carbonation burned. With the arrival of their drinks, the subject of Johnny was dropped as another one began.

Roughly a half hour later the group all finished eating and left the restaurant, bellies full and liveliness high. Taeyong was bouncing beside Yubin as they all walked down the dark streets. Since it was evening, and the restaurant wasn’t too far from the hotel, they had all decided to just walk to and from the restaurant. It was a nice night out, the late-night breeze touching their skin and cooling the air.

“It’s been a long day,” sighed Jaehyun as he walked sluggishly behind Yubin and Taeyong, “I’m going to crash the moment I get in bed.”

“Sleep sounds so good right now.” Mark agreed. He had already tired himself out and was sated since he was full and out of energy. Yubin reached over and gently ruffled his dark locks. “Don’t stay up too late, get some rest. You as well, Donghyuck,” She stated, making sure to look directly at Donghyuck at her last sentence.

The mentioned boy glanced up from his phone, a frown already appearing on his face. “Can I ever live?” he demanded.

“Hyuck, it's quiet time now. Shh.” murmured Mark, reaching over and playfully shoving his hand into the younger boy’s face, snickering when he whined in protest.

~↺~

Despite the fact that they were to be given special entry, it didn’t stop kids from running around the area and hollering as loud as their little lungs would let them with excitement. The group were at Universal Studios preparing for their next event: The Walking Dead walk.

Yubin had heard about this attraction before, had seen discourse about it on her private Facebook account, and was interested in what it would be like. She never minded thriller genres or things in the scary subject, so she was mostly filled with minor curiosity as they all waited for the attraction to finish setting up. They were sitting in a side-room, simply chatting to fill in the quiet air and to give the mounted cameras posted around the room some footage. The opening filming shots had already been taken, so all they could do was wait.

Though, if there was anyone in the group who was neither excited nor curious about the upcoming event it was Mark, who was biding his time by leaning worriedly against Jaehyun and ignoring Donghyuck’s taunts. In the months of living at the dorm Yubin had quickly found out about his fear of scary things, avoiding the living room in the nights that they held scary movie marathons and making a point to never bring up ideas of ghosts that other members believed resided in their dorm.

The sound of rattling chains and the eerie cackle of someone laughing rebounded throughout the room, and Yubin watched as Mark visibly paled. “Uhh… are you sure I have to do the walk?” the boy asked warily. Jaehyun nudged him, looking fairly amused. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna chicken out.” He responded.

“Mark, you can walk with me if you want.” Yubin finally said, addressing the boy who looked rather relieved at the offer.

Across from her, Ten made a noise of disappointment. “I wanted to walk with you though,” he murmured with a cross of his arms. Yubin shook her head and pointed at him, “I saw you when they pranked Hit the Stage. No thanks.” She immediately denied, blatantly ignoring his complaints.

“If Mark’s gonna go with Youngjin Hyung then should we pair up in advance?” Donghyuck prompted as he tapped the floor to gain everyone’s attention. “If so, I want Taeyong Hyung.”

Ten looked absolutely offended at how unwilling s were to be partnered with him.

“Hyung, I’ll partner with you,” Jaehyun offered like the good kid he was. Ten scooted over to him and clasped the younger’s hands between his own.

“Jaehyun,” He said solemnly, “You’re my favorite.”

The other members all laughed at the dramatic response.

Fifteen minutes after finally deciding the partners Taeyong and Donghyuck, who were the first pair to go in, were already screaming in terror (Well, Taeyong was. Donghyuck could be heard laughing at the older man). Back in the waiting room, the remaining four were laughing from the screams, finding it more amusing than they had thought it would be. By the time the duo came back from their turn, Donghyuck looked utterly bemused with twinkling eyes and Taeyong was pale and looked rather tired. Once they sat down, Donghyuck immediately began to talk about how Taeyong was yelling the whole time and that the walk was really fun to go through.

With that, Jaehyun and Ten were sent in.

As expected, within a minute they could all hear Ten’s (loud) screams of terror, though this time they could also hear muffled gunshots. At that, Taeyong mentioned how there was a ‘guy shooting zombies’ sometime in the walk. Their walk was topped off with a yelp from Jaehyun, and then they appeared through the exit. Ten looked dazed, and held Jaehyun’s arm in a death grip. For the most part, Jaehyun looked fine, patting Ten’s hand comfortingly.

“It’s pretty fun,” Jaehyun announced when they sat down again. Ten frowned and stretched across the floor, “It’s scary.” he responded, visibly pouting.

Yubin pushed off the floor, stretching her back out before she gestured for Mark to get up as well. “It’s our turn now isn’t it, Mark?” She stated simply. Mark nervously stood up, tittering in his spot briefly before finally coming towards her and lightly taking hold of the back of her shirt.

The two purposefully ignored the obnoxious coos courtesy of Ten and Donghyuck.

The door slammed shut behind them as they stepped into the new room. It was dark and ominous, which was to be expected of a zombie walk.

“Let’s goo…” Yubin hummed lowly and began walking, forcing Mark to walk as well from proximity. She could hear the sound of his shuffling sneakers over the zombie groans and moans that surrounded them. “If I scream… don’t make fun of me.” Mark said suddenly as they turned a corner and witnessed the front of a makeshift barn that was set aflame.

Still walking with no plans to stop, Yubin tilted her head back to take a glance at him and opened to reply when the odd sound of crackling and the whirring of machinery reached her