With much convincing, Daesung eventually gave in with reluctance. He was a dead man if his father found out about his musical pursuit, but damn. He wanted to be in a band, being in a band would totally get him laid. Oh, and making music, of course.

So the boys had finished up their discussing and planning in Jiyong’s basement, time to put Step One into action; Step One is getting Jiyong’s parents to buy him the things he needs which are a soundproof basement, speakers, amps, a sound system, cords, and some microphones.

He didn’t feel guilty for planning to manipulate his parents, he was always good at getting what he wanted through messing with other people’s emotions. In fact, he was a bit excited because this was the most he ever asked for during one of his over exaggerated pity parties and it was more of a challenge than anything.

The rest and him were waiting for his parents to return and they were desperately trying to get tears in his eyes to make him more convincing.

“Well, . How can we get him to cry? He’s a terrible actor.” Seungri sighed hopelessly, going through the list of methods as he sat at the computer.

“Am not.” Jiyong replied defensively.

“Good actors can make themselves cry. You always brag about being in drama but where are your skills to show for it? Exactly.” Seungri hadn’t been fed in the last four hours and, therefore, had become snappy.

He huffed with a roll of his eyes, finding no words to respond with.

“Ji, maybe all you really need to do is pretend to be really sad to get them to believe you. Maybe tears aren’t necessary. Though I feel bad for helping you trick your parents.” Seunghyun had trailed off as he laid on the small bed pressed against the wall, his hands behind his head, not even glancing at him. Taeyang and Daesung quietly playing a game on the smaller tv set up in the corner, not even paying attention to the others.

“Yeah, okay. There’s honestly no other way, I guess I’ll prepare my pity party upstairs as they should be home by now.” He elongated the last few words as he stared at his expensive watch on his wrist, bringing himself to his feet.

He had sat himself in the big armchair quietly, continuously glancing at his watch as he waited. Within a few minutes, he could hear footsteps making their way up the front steps and he couldn’t help but feel nervous. He shifted in his seat as his mother had come in through the front door with groceries on each arm followed by his father, he didn’t bother looking at them despite being in line of view (for a more dramatic effect, he thought.)

“Hello, sweet pea. How was school today?” His mother cooed as she disappeared into the kitchen to begin putting the groceries away alongside his father.

Jiyong was going to respond as it was a natural reflex, but bit his lip to hold it back. Instead he just straightened his posture and waited for them to notice his silence.

“Honey, how was your day?” She had asked again a bit louder than before, the sound of plastic bags being ruffled emitting from the kitchen.

“Jiyong? Is something wrong, son?” His father reappeared in the entrance of the living room with a raised eyebrow.

He had put on his best face and slowly turned his head to look over to the man, his lips slightly pouted and his eyebrows furrowed.

His face at scrunched up slightly in worry. “Oh, Jiyong. What is it? What happened? Are they bullying you at school again?”

Ouch, Jiyong thought at the random blast to the past for a second before responding with a slow shake of his head.

His mother came out now with a concerned look on her face. “Are they being mean to you again, my baby?” She had brushed past her husband to walk over to the boy.

A bit of guilt creeped in the pit of his stomach at the obvious scare he was giving his parents but pushed on, he played up his act by hanging his head low. He finally spoke up in a voice just above a whisper. “It’s just...I feel like you and dad -” He paused, he could feel his parents’ stare on him. “I feel like you and dad don’t love me that much.” Finishing with a shaky and weaker voice, he patted himself on the back.

As his parents and Jiyong talked, the rest of the group listened with the basement door cracked open with faces of ‘how the hell are they buying this?’

Jiyong had raised his voice from time to time with ridiculously cliche lines like “you guys don’t understand me” and “I feel so unloved.” The others had barely managed to hold back their laughter at his over dramatic acting.

After about an hour of patiently waiting downstairs, the actor had finally come with good news.

They had all sat on the carpeted floor and began to discuss where they would perform, Taeyang and his fake ID suggesting good bars where good bands usually played. “Yeah, you can play there, even underage people can. As long as you don’t touch the alcohol, you’re good. Though second hand smoke can’t be good for the tiny lungs in the group.” He said, gesturing to Seungri with a teasing grin on his lips.

Seungri simply rolled his eyes.

“Well, how do we book these places?” Seunghyun had asked curiously.

“First, we have to record a demo which will probably complete considering we don’t have a recording studio but we can try our best using expensive applications on the computer or some . Doesn’t seem too hard, we’ll just have to record each sound separately. Introduce ourselves as a band through a sheet of paper. Send our demo out to all these places accepting them and hope to get booked, our only way to get a gig.”

They finally moved onto the positions in the group. “I don’t play any instruments though.” Seungri spoke with a pout on his lips as he leaned back on his hands. “Well, you can be the main vocalist then. Sing the majority of the lines-”

“You gotta be kidding me, I can’t sing in front of an audience. You know I can’t, I’m too shy. I can do fine as a background vocal or something.”

Youngbae sighed at the boy’s doubt in himself, Seungri’s confidence needed some help. “Kid, I’m going to be on the piano, Daesung on the drums, Jiyong on the bass, and Seunghyun on the guitar. You gotta fit in somewhere, besides your singing is fine.”

Seunghyun nodded along before following up with, “Seungri, we need a main vocalist and Daesung and Youngbae will be your background vocals and do some parts-”

“I didn’t agree to sing, I just wanted to do drums. I didn’t agree to this. What’re you talking about?” Daesung had cut him off in obvious distress at the thought of singing.

Seunghyun had shot a glare towards him before turning his attention back on comforting the youngest. “Seungri, you’re still just 15. You’ll improve in time, we need a main vocalist and it’s gotta be you.”

Seungri wouldn’t ever admit it, but he secretly wanted to impress Seunghyun. Though they had the same name (Seungri just being a nickname), he felt very inferior to the harsher man. So he hesitantly gave in with a mumbled agreement, averting his gaze from Seunghyun’s intense one.

“Okay, so...what’s our sound gonna be?”

“Indie rock, don’t you think we can do that genre nicely?”

“Indie rock? What the hell, Jiyong. We should definitely do rock, it would match us even better than that hipster .” Seunghyun had responded with a scowl, not liking the idea of being an indie group.

“Personally, I like the idea of an indie genre for our group.”

“Me too, hyung.” Daesung had responded, followed by a quieter Seungri.

“Well, I’m down. I like both.”

“.” Seunghyun cussed under his breath.