Act I, Scene VI: Mortui Vivos Docent

Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea - 1900 hours

As it turns out, Kyungsoo doesn't have the chance to tell Yixing no. Before he can even take a breath to let out the rapidly building scream coagulating in his chest, an ice cream truck skids around the corner and screeches to a stop in front of them. Junmyeon sticks his head out, hair still patchy from where Choa tore entire handfuls out, and lights up when he spots them.

“Kyungsoo, Yixing! Get in!”

Sighing, Kyungsoo frowns at his leader. “Can I not?”

His protest, again, comes too late though, because Yixing is already dragging him into the truck, where all of the members (including Jongin, who is inexplicably laid out in an open fridge on the truck floor with his arms crossed and eyes closed) are waiting.

“Hey Jongdae!” Yixing chirps, stuffing Kyungsoo into the back and clambering in himself. “Where are we going?”

“Away from here!” Sticking his head out the window above the ice cream counter, Jongdae shades his eyes. “Hit the gas, Junmyeon! Bob and weave and accelerate all at once, that’s the trick! Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him!” From the front, Sehun shouts something in vague agreement and starts fiddling with buttons. Rocking and rolling, the truck roars to life before Yixing can even properly shut the door.

I’m going to die, Kyungsoo decides with a groan, covering his eyes with a hand. I’m going to die crammed in the back of an ice cream truck with eight other guys who’ve lost their marbles. The truck gives a horrible lurch, sending them all careening to the left, and Kyungsoo lets out another woebegone sigh. And I never even got that nap.

Something blares in the front seat, and Sehun lets out a little shriek, mashing down on a button and yelling “off, off, off”!

“La la lalala, la la la la. La la lalala, la la la - ”

Chanyeol crawls toward the front of the truck, holding onto a seatbelt for dear life.“Sehun, why is the truck playing just the creepy part of Red Velvet’s ‘Ice Cream Cake’ on repeat?”

“I don’t know!” Sehun yells back as the truck blares louder and louder. “I was messing with the buttons and now it won’t shut up!”

“La la lalala - “

“Red Velvet must have programmed the truck to change its jingle,” Junmyeon shouts over his shoulder, swerving onto the sidewalk to avoid a cockroach crossing the street. “We jacked it from the parking garage when the fight broke out!”

Yixing clutches a seat for support. “What fight?”

“ - la la la - “

“The Carat stans came back for revenge, and now there are at least five different groups in our dorm engaging in a battle royale,” Sehun shouts. “Also, if I can reprogram the truck to play something else, which song of ours should I put on loop?”

“Loop my screamo part in Mama,” Jongin suggests, and they all scream when he sits up from inside the empty fridge they had laid flat on the floor as a makeshift coffin. Even Junmyeon shrieks and flails with terror, and the truck just barely avoids crashing into a stop sign, bouncing off the curb instead and wheeling around in circles.

Kyungsoo grabs Jongdae’s unused seat belt from behind him while he isn’t looking and loops it with his. Maybe, he muses, tying it into a knot, maybe if I tie myself down with enough seat belts, I won’t die on impact when we inevitably crash. Yixing sits on the other side of him, and Kyungsoo eyes his seat belt covetously.

“Why are you alive?” Chanyeol asks Jongin, eyes wide and limbs st