2017: Sunday, Part One

                                    

                                          
2017, DAY THREE
Sunday, August 20, 2017 8:31 AM
Taehyun is still out cold when Soobin wakes up, so he makes a few preparations and heads out to the hotel to see Minyoung.
The air is quiet outside, a typical Sunday morning in upstate New York. Performances don't begin until 10 AM, and they end at three. King Solomon won't technically play at Sperry until the festival is over, enabling Soobin to be on stage with Taehyun. Their set is scheduled for five o'clock sharp, closing out NeoNara and the weekend with a bang. 
Taehyun hates that this is how they have to perform now, working around Soobin's visa and military time. But it is what has to happen.
When he stirs, he notices Soobin is gone, and panics for ten seconds before he figures he's at the hotel with Minyoung. Sure enough, when he texts, Soobin answers back immediately with a selfie. Good. At least Soobin is keeping busy.
Taehyun's head is clear this morning, so he decides to be domestic. He makes the bed, putting everything away so his parents can drive the RV home later that night. He gets some of his protein sandwiches out of the fridge and heats them in the microwave, drinking water to go along with his breakfast. He sits in the booth and makes sure his phone is charged. The D4FES staff still have his laptop, but they will deliver it to him or Soobin later on today. 
They will have a dual soundcheck at 12 PM with the other group playing Sperry today, a boy band known as Star One. Then, they will rest while Star One plays their set at three, and then the fun will truly begin. But for now, Taehyun rests in the quiet, in the knowledge that Soobin is with his sister, stilling the voices that insist he is somehow leaving today for Korea.
Soobin wouldn't just do that. Especially without not preparing Taehyun first. But at the same time, if Minyoung is here...then she's reminding Soobin of everything he is missing. Not now, but he will go back after the D4FES is done, Taehyun thinks to himself. He best prepare for it now.
He scrolls through his phone, checking social media, seeing the Tweets about last night's D4FES banger. A disproportionate number of messages are about Polaris Rider, complaining that there was no Rainbow Connection, but Taehyun doesn't worry about those. The show at D4FES is not big enough for cannons, and Polaris didn't want to bring them regardless. When he scrolls down further, he sees a bunch of conversation about Scarlet Canary and Mansions in the Air — ahh, good, so at least some people know who wrote that track! — and then it's mostly SQRL-X talk.
When Taehyun filters out the national talk, though, he gets a lot of local messages about King Solomon. Nearly everybody in New York State is messaging, not only about the show he just played last night, but the show he is going to play later on today. Since it's a free show again, and it's first come, first serve, Taehyun knows people will be fighting for spots. In fact, some people have posted that they are already in line, camping out to see King Solomon perform. 
He posts his own message thanking everybody for the D4FES show, and promising a good show later on today. And then, he puts his phone down and tries not to think about Soobin. 
At eleven, Roger and Melinda knock on the door, and they take Taehyun to lunch at the food tent. Taehyun does his best to distract himself with wheat noodles and vanilla ice cream, but Soobin hasn't texted for an hour. It means he's still with Minyoung, but Taehyun can't help but be a little clingy, can he? He doesn't care what Soobin does; he just wants to know he's okay.
"Soobin is fine," Melinda tells Taehyun for the umpteenth time. 
Taehyun pauses. "I didn't say anything about Soobin."
"You didn't need to say anything. Your face did."
"Oh," Taehyun says, and they both laugh after that, and Taehyun lets it go for now.