2017: Saturday, Part Four

                                    

                                          
2017, DAY TWO
Saturday, August 19, 2017 6:42 PM
Taehyun, thankfully, is very preocupado.
He is escorted to the hotel where the rest of the D4FES members are staying during the 4Town set. There's no reason for him to sit backstage and have his ears bleed thanks to boy-band bubblegum pop. And Taehyun likes the genre; he just doesn't need it at 100 decibels.
When he gets into the hotel, he notices there is a ping pong table in the lobby, and two of the Merm4id members are going at it back and forth. "We used to play this in Japan all the time," one of them says, and Taehyun watches, then jumps in. It's easier than he remembers, though his hand-eye coordination isn't the best from all his Meniere's trouble.
The nap he took earlier seems to have cured all of that which ails him. Taehyun wonders how he keeps getting so lucky with his shows.
The tour organizers come in, going over the setlist one more time, and everybody puts the finishing touches onto their costumes. Taehyun realizes his black costume is back at the RV; he sends a mass text to the group chat, and Beomgyu and Kai come by to drop it off.
"It seems like everybody has a key to your RV now," Beomgyu says as Kai ensures the black dress shirt has no wrinkles.
Taehyun takes the sunglasses from Kai and perches them on his nose, then pauses. "Kai, did you get married and not tell us?"
"Hmm?" Kai looks at Taehyun, then down at his left hand, which has one single silver band on it. "Oh, no, Jjuni just got me this. It's a couples ring. Wait, do you not know what that is?" There is a small Traditional Kai Kamal Huening Squeal, then he darts around, realizing nobody in the room knows what that is and he is stuck explaining it.
"People who are in committed relationships in Korea get matching rings. It doesn't mean they're married or engaged. Sometimes you get them as soon as your hundred day anniversary!" Kai pauses. "Soobin didn't get you a ring yet?" 
Taehyun shakes his head. He is about to say more when an image strikes his brain: a silver ring, clattering to the floor in his RV, and Mayumi's ecstatic face when Taehyun had asked her about it. "He probably hasn't said anything about it because I don't like rings," he deduces out loud. "But...maybe I'd be okay with it now. I don't know. I guess rings always struck me as something you would get for the girl to show off your engagement. It's not really something a guy wears here until you're married."
"We know," Beomgyu says, putting a hand on Taehyun's shoulder. "I did the same with Tatiana. But Soobin and Yeonjun follow different rules."
"And that's why I'm wearing this ring!" Kai says, showing it off. "It doesn't mean I'm married. It means that Yeonjun loves me and only me, forever and ever."
It suddenly strikes Taehyun. "Oh, so like a promise ring!" Beomgyu and Kai nod, and he thinks about it for a moment. He still can't get the image of Mayumi out of his mind, but thankfully he knows Soobin is different. If Soobin got him a ring...it wouldn't mean that he was being manipulated into something he couldn't control. It would mean just that. Soobin loves me and only me, forever and ever.
"Maybe," he finally says. "I think if Soobin had a matching one, that would help. But I haven't even talked to him about such a thing. I think it can wait until after the festival is done. Then I'll talk to him, and we'll have a good conversation about it." 
4Town's set ends, and security has their hands full clearing Sperry for the next show. There are no less than seven girls who have to be escorted off NeoNara's premises because they are trying to sneak back to the tour van. Taehyun stays far away from the mess, sipping on an orange juice, then putting his sunglasses on. When he looks in the mirror, he looks exactly like one half of King Solomon.