Daesung hummed to himself, flipping his laptop screen up. He felt good. The session a few days ago had made him feel more relaxed and lying in his own bed in his own house made him feel safer and protected from the outside world. He had also wheedled a copy of the whole collection of photos and video clips for himself from the production team -- he was good with things like that, smiling and laughing and getting things from people if he really wanted to.

"Before they edited them too.." he whispered to himself gleefully. 

He knew that the amount of unedited photographs and video clips were mostly edited heavily for promoting purposes or to include in DVDs and quite a number were left out for whichever reason. Sometimes Jiyong-hyung would ask for certain scenes to be cut out if he felt they didn't go with the flow of the story they were creating.

Daesung carefully selected the folder for the concert he wanted and opened all the photos at once to scroll through, eyes keenly watching colors popping up at him, his heart thumping.

6 hours later, the morning light started streaming into his bedroom through the window. Daesung's eyes stung after staring at both his laptop and phone screens for so long. Instead of feeling reassured which he normally did after a marathon of digging information, he felt a rising alarm well up within him. For once, he felt defeated. All that carefully cultivated stage and public persona, those smiles and waving, all of that, could go down the drain and he would be ruined. He won't be able to show his face to the world anymore. A long buried feeling of hopelessness started to make itself known within himself but he had trained himself to squash it the moment he was aware of it coming back. He barely managed to divert his thoughts away. Glancing at his clock and judging that Youngbae-hyung would already be awake by now, he pulled back his blanket and left his room, not bothering to put anything on. 

He slid onto his favorite seat in the house and picked up his sticks, twirling them slightly. He started tapping lightly on the rims of the double toms. He was in control right now. He could plan this carefully.

 

Youngbae squinted at his watch. 5.30am and he could hear Daesung's rhythmic drumming already. He couldn't decide if this was good or bad. For a moment he was stuck in immobility, deciding if he should make a casual visit to his dongsaeng's apartment to have a chat -- information gathering of sorts. But he had promised himself that he would give Daesung some time. Nodding to himself, he put on his running shoes, tapped out a quick message to Seunghyun and left for the gym. He would think about this again maybe, after his session.

 

Seunghyun slowly opened an eye and glared at his phone. Who the sent him a message at ing 5.30am? All of them were given explicit orders, repeatedly, to never contact him before 2pm during their resting period. But he had been on a constant alert ever since the chat he had with Youngbae in the hotel and Daesung had came back right before dawn on the same day, without a word of explanation. He had even ignored Seunghyun who was in his room, not questioning why he wasn't in his own room. Daesung had shut him out since then and Seunghyun had been worrying at this. He groaned and reach out to his phone.

"He's drumming. Good, bad dunno." Seunghyun snorted at the brevity of Youngbae's message. Concise with no other information -- Youngbae must have filed this new development away to think it over in his head for a while, as with how he usually does things.

His phone unexpectedly buzzed again. Startled, Seunghyun cursed out loud. 

"Hyung, we need to talk." His eyes widened as he read the message. Daesung had never ever voluntarily reached out to him in this way. Seunghyun felt his spirits lift slightly. If he was willing to let him in, perhaps this was not what he and Youngbae expected after all?

"Sure, free now. No wait after 2pm. Where?"

"My place, anytime after 2pm, bring drinks ^^"

Ok now Seunghyun felt anxious. Daesung inviting him to his house? With drinks?

Deciding this was not worth the throbbing in his head and a conversation before 6am, he muttered about bunny ears in messages and started snoring the moment he dropped his phone beside him and his head hit the pillow.

 

Daesung straightened the cushions on his sofa for the nth time. He had carefully set up his laptop on the dining room table, had prepared glasses, take-out from Seunghyun-hyung's favorite restaurant prepared beautifully on his best plates and he was wearing his most comfortable clothes which wasn't too informal but would show that he was serious. But not too serious. He couldn't have his hyung know how big a deal this was to him. But maybe he should, maybe he should change his clothes or -- the doorbell rang.

Daesung hurried to the door but it was already halfway open by the time he reached it. Seunghyun's smiling face popped in,"I remember everything remember? You gave me the code the day you moved in."

Leaving Seunghyun to place a bag of bottles on his table, Daesung muttered to himself about changing his security code while rummaging for a corkscrew.

After a rather strange meal with an over-exuberant Seunghyun and a muted Daesung, they settled on the sofa together with their glasses of wine. Daesung had moved his laptop to the coffee table. He cleared his throat.

"Hyung, the thing I wanted to talk about.."

Seunghyun dropped his happy act and gently placed his glass beside the laptop, carefully controlling his movements. He felt like any sharp movements might scare Daesung away or stop him from opening up to talk about whatever this is.

Daesung glanced at his hyung, eyes darting to his laptop and he sighed. Without speaking further, he double clicked on the photos he had carefully copied into a new folder and moved the laptop for his hyung to get a clearer view.

Seunghyun scrolled through the photos quietly. Confused, he stopped and picked up his glass again. 

"These are photos of the concert we just had before we returned home. What did you wanted me to see?"

Daesung ran through the plan in his head. He almost gave up on it, not willing to do this with anyone else but he knew his hyung wouldn't be fooled that easily.

"It's this girl, hyung," he took the mouse and hovered the cursor over the same girl, that witch with the quirked eyebrow, appearing in all the photos he had opened.

Seunghyun maintained a face of confusion "And..? She's at the front row so she would appear in a lot of those photos?"

Daesung clicked on his browser with a dozen opened tabs. He gestured to Seunghyun to read all its contents. He stood up, slightly agitated, walked to the kitchen and began rinsing the dirty plates.

Seunghyun looked after the retreating back of his friend and started reading...

 

1 hour later, Seunghyun leaned back on the sofa, feeling an uncomfortable crick in his neck from hunching over the laptop for so long. Daesung handed him his glass (washed, much to his amusement, and re-filled).

"There's more.. I haven't transferred these to my laptop yet so.." Daesung unlocked his phone, tapped a few times and passed it to Seunghyun with slight reluctance.

Seunghyun smiled and took the phone. Daesung never lets anyone touch his phone, let alone see anything in it. He felt like he was in a surreal sort of space at the moment, in his apartment, reading those posts from his laptop and now holding his phone...

 

"Ok now we talk. Why was I reading all those posts on someone's blog and that was a private blog, Daesung, how did you get those, and these pictures, where did you get them?" Daesung grabbed his phone away from his hyung's hand, he could see his hyung had already taken the opportunity to open other apps in his phone, the nosy dolt.

Taking a deep breath, Daesung composed himself.

"I think we have a problem with security. Or rather privacy. I mean our security team is doing a good job but how did this girl know so much..." Daesung's arms flailed about ".. stuff?!" 

Seunghyun was still confused,"Dae-yah, firstly, half of those things are information our stalkers already know about, secondly, the other half look like things she made up. I've never heard about those things you supposedly did and it looks like she's just another fan who conjectured these.. things about us, especially about you."

"Hyung, I called you here because I know you remember everything. I wanted to know if you've seen her before that concert anywhere around me.. I mean us. Like when we had dinner or .. or maybe when I meet my friends when we went overseas.."

Seunghyun decided not to ask about his so-called 'friends'. He knew that his dongsaeng suspected that he knew about his activities to an extent when they were overseas. In actual fact, as he was going through the photos on Daesung's laptop, he recognised the girl. Daesung was not the only one with a copy of those photos. He had obtained them much earlier, right after the concert on the way home in fact. He wanted to know why Daesung was so agitated that night nearing the end of the concert. He had noted that the girl's face was amongst the first two rows in the concert but didn't think much of it. He couldn't figure out from the video clips what had made Daesung so shocked that he had almost let slip his stage persona. Watching Daesung who was now trying to maintain his composure after that uncharacteristic outburst, Seunghyun retreated into his mind quickly to put the pieces together. Was she the reason for the deterioration in his state of mind? But Daesung had started to show signs of slipping a few months even before this concert. 

"Not really, Dae-yah. I've only seen her for the first time in those photos. But if this is an issue and you think she might be invading your, or our privacy, we can let the security guys know and you know they will stop her from coming near us wherever we are. In concerts, if you see her, you can choose not to go where she is. You know Youngbae and Jiyong do that anyway when they see their stalkers. Daesungie.. I wanted to talk to you about something else though.." Seunghyun nervously tapped the side of his glass.

Daesung looked up at his hyung sharply. The changes in topic and tone of his voice were enough for him to start building up his wall rapidly. He stubbornly veered back to their original topic of discussion so they needn't tread on dangerous grounds.

"She seems like a witch to me hyung. Stalking me, writing all those things only I know about, and pretending to be innocent about it, smiling at me, making me believe she's a true fan, taking me away from my other fans, I don't like it hyung."

Slightly bemused, Seunghyun didn't miss the singular reference Daesung made to himself. 

"And yes, ok hyung, I have my needs, I meet some.. people, it won't happen like the last time, I'm discrete now, my contact is much better and he doesn't have a reason to spill anything to anyone, not like the last one.." Daesung bitterly smiled into his glass, refusing to meet his hyung's eyes. He belatedly decided it was better to be honest so his hyung wouldn't pry further. Honest, to an extent, or as much as he wanted him to know, at least.

Surprised by the sudden confession, Seunghyun struggled to form words. This was the latest sudden turn in events he didn't quite expect today.

"Well. I mean. I have confidence you know what you're doing now Daesung. Just don't shut me out again, please? I cannot live with myself if.. If. You know." 

Disarmed by his hyung's reply, Daesung rubbed his shoulders gently. 

"It won't happen again, hyung. I hurt too many people that time. I'm in control now. Trust me."

 

Shutting the door behind Seunghyun after a few more hours of reassurances that they would never keep things from each other in future, Daesung slumped down onto his sofa. He thought that went rather according to his plan. Aside from the sudden confession, which proved to be quite strategic, he felt. He wasn't going to bring this up with the security team. He didn't want the girl to be too far. In fact, he wanted her closer. Daesung padded to his bed, stripped and made himself comfortable. He opened his twitter app. Nobody, not even s, knew that he had a twitter account. A public one. He was careful in never posting any group or solo information or activities and never said anything to make anyone suspicious. Tweets were drafted and deleted and re-drafted before he even posted them. He even had a night of fun where he pretended to be a fan and teased maknae nonstop because he knew maknae was the one person who would obsessively read all his mentions. He grinned to himself remembering how maknae complained about it the whole day about the fangirl harrassing him. Where is my witch? He tapped on an account and began re-reading. While her blog was private, her account on twitter wasn't and he would dig further. This might actually be fun. He carefully composed and sent a private message to her. He was going to delve into her mind and turn the table on her. He was in control.