*Present*

“Hello?” Rachel answered her phone groggily.

“Hey unni~! Wassup?!” her friend Violet greeted.

“...you know that I sleep until noon on Saturdays,” she grumbled.

“Well get your lazy up and get dressed, because the guys are meeting at the usual place in like 10 minutes. Hyorin and I will pick you up in 5.”

“What?! 5 minutes?” Rachel asked, more awake now.

“Rachel, I know that you only need 5 minutes to get ready, with your perfect hair that don’t get tangled,” Violet said, barely speaking the last part.

“You also know that I can hear you perfectly no matter how quiet you try to be,” Rachel replied as she got up from her bed.

“Fine then! Be that way! You got 3 minutes now!” Violet shouted before hanging up.

“Goodbye to you too,” Rachel said sarcastically into the phone before putting it down.

It was true though. It doesn’t take long for Rachel to get ready straight out of bed. On the other hand, Violet takes about an hour.

By the time Hyorin and Violet pulled up to Rachel’s apartment, Rachel was on her phone casually, listening to music as usual through her earbuds.

“What took you so long?” Rachel asked jokingly with her earbuds still in her ears.

Violet looked at her watch, “it’s been 3 minutes sharp!”

Rachel shrugged, “I don’t know why you’re surprised.”

Hyorin nodded, “seriously. You two were best friends for years, and roommates in college. How are you still surprised?”

Violet sent a glare to Hyorin.

“Sorry Vi. I may be your girlfriend, but let’s be honest,” Hyorin said getting back into the car.

Rachel soon joined her in the car and sat in the back seat Violet scoffed, “next time I should give you 2 minutes.” “Whatever, but don’t get mad if you don’t like the results,” Rachel smiled.

~~~

The guys were already at the usual meeting place by the time the girls arrived.

“Why do you guys always want to meet here?” Rachel asked, slightly annoyed with their choice of venue; which by the way was just a regular, plain McDonalds.

“I think you know the reason Rachel,” the boy with a deep voice said.

“Or we can have Youngjae do his thing,” the tall one joked.

Though to Youngjae, the know-it-all of the group, it wasn’t a joke.

“The 6 of us have chosen---” he began, before being cut off by Daehyun.

“Can we just order and get our food already?!” he complained.

“Don’t say any more Youngjae. I only asked as a joke. Besides, I want to hear Himchan’s pronunciation of the food that he always orders again,” Rachel smiled playfully.

“Ugh...can’t you guys just get over that? You guys pronounce stuff wrong too,” he reasoned.

“But it’s funnier when you do it,” Hyorin said.

As usual, Himchan made the others laugh when he ordered a cheeseburger,  but pronounced it as, “cheezy-burga”. Daehyun, also being himself, ordered what seem to be half the menu, if not the restaurant. The rest just ordered a small drink of their choice with a burger.

“So I heard the carnival is coming this year,” Youngjae said after everyone had finished eating; even Daehyun.

“Youngjae, the carnival comes every year,” Yongguk said.

“I know,” Youngjae replied.

There was a short, awkward silence since everyone waited for Youngjae to continue, but he didn’t surprisingly. It wasn’t a surprise, however, when it was Himchan who broke the silence.

“So what’s the big deal?!” he yelled, earning a few stares from people around us.

“Oh, well. The carnival coming is the Carnival of Destiny,” Youngjae explained.

That caught Daehyun’s attention.

“D-did you just say the Carnival of Destiny?” he asked.

Youngjae smiled, “that’s why I wanted to meet today. It may just be the thing to get all of your memory back!”

For weeks, Daehyun has been having flashbacks that gave him really bad headaches. All of them were linked together because they were all at the Carnival of Destiny. The last time they visited the city was 10 years ago. The exact year when Daehyun lost his memory due to, according to his mother, a car accident.

Over the years, most of his memory did come back, but the chunk that was still missing was what happened exactly on the day he lost his memory, and practically anything before that. He told Youngjae about his flashbacks, hoping that his “knowledge” would interpret something. The only thing he said was to go to the Carnival of Destiny and that seeing the place itself would bring it all back.

What Daehyun remembered was the entrance sign of the carnival with the gold lettered font saying, “Carnival of Destiny”. After that was a blurry vision of a dark room, but he wasn’t alone. There was laughter and the other person was, judging by how soft and high the laugh was, a girl. The last thing he remembers is a colorful kiddie train, with a sign that gold and red colored letters. He wasn’t able to make out what those letters read though.

“When do we go?” the tall boy asked, trying hard to hide his excitement.

Violet giggled, “aigoo Zelo~, you’re so cute!”

“I’m a man now noona~!” he whined.

“I know, but you’ll still be the cute-little-skater-boy that I met in 6th grade,” Violet smiled, making Zelo pout like the little boy we all met in 6th grade.

“The carnival is from this friday until sunday,” Yongjae announced after checking on his phone.

“You do realize that there was a flier right on the window the whole time right?” Yongguk asked Youngjae.

“O-oh...,” Youngjae said, feeling embarrassed.

“We should bring Dasom and the rest of your group too, Hyorin,” Himchan suggested.

Hyorin hesitated to answer, but she finally nodded, “okay, but you don’t touch them. Understand?”

Himchan nodded and soluted her, “yes ma’am!”

Yongguk shook his head, “oh geez.”

“He won’t touch my girl Dasom,” Daehyun smiled.

“Yup, nobody touches Daehyun’s girlfriend~,” Youngjae teased.

“Oh stop teasing, Youngjae. It’s sweet that he’s like that with her!” Violet defended.

While Violet was arguing with the smart-mouth Youngjae, Rachel sat on the edge of the booth quietly.

“Are you ok?” Jongup asked her.

She snapped out of her little world and smiled, “yeah. Just thinking about the exams on Monday.”

“Ah, speaking of which, can you help me study again?”

Rachel nodded, “sure. We should go now though, I’ll be busy tomorrow.”

Jongup nodded and got up, “hyung, we’ll be at the library.”

Yongguk gave him an approving nod and went back to writing in his lyric journal while the argument between Violet and Youngjae was heating up even more.

Rachel stood up absentmindedly and followed Jongup out the door.

Although he was mostly busy trying to get Youngjae to shut his mouth for once, Daehyun couldn’t help but notice Rachel leave with a face that said something was on her mind. He quickly made a mental note to talk to her later, but right now, his job was to keep Youngjae from getting beaten up and humiliated again in public because he argued with Violet.

Just in case any of you are confused, Hyorin and Violet are in a girl & girl relationship. Just a little surprise for my unni. (Hyorin is her ultimate female bias.)