Bad Choices


Toby had never been one of those to be fair with others. He neither was one to be compassionate or understanding. But there was one thing he was really, really good at. It was at seeing through others to find the biggest benefit for himself. And so he had already analyzed his group members.

Starting with the leader, Toby found it pretty easy to manipulate and win Kangjoon over to take advantage of him. Kangjoon was very simple-minded, he had the right connections to people Toby wanted to get close with and he was able and even willing to teach Toby what he was best at: Bboying. And since he was the leader of the group, he was the most influential member among the others. At least for now.

Geunji was rude to the core and like Kangjoon he wasn’t that smart. Maybe even less than the leader but one thing Toby had to admit: That boy was able to dance and he was a pretty good choreographer as well. But besides that he wasn’t that much of a threat to Toby. That guy was throwing wild insults at anyone when feeling attacked and the best example for a person suffering foot-in-mouth disease which would eventually come to bite him in the one day. To Toby he was not that interesting in that case. Should Karma find its way to that idiot soon. Who even cared?



The one being a real problem for Toby was Bangwon. Toby couldn’t stand anything of his entire being. Bangwon called himself a real rapper? He was just some lousy underground rapper. He called himself a composer? He still lost to Toby. Granted, Toby indeed had his ways to keep Bangwon in check by telling Taehee to start a competition to show Bangwon who the real deal was. Toby would have never given up his spot as solo performer at BigHit United if he hadn’t been 100% sure he was about to win the competition anyway. One of the reasons he won was that he was the one choosing who ended up in which team. Knowing that Bangwon would struggle with the members assigned to him and Toby’s own team consisting of BigHit’s top performing trainees who all could all dance and also sing decently, there had been no doubt that the winner would be BigHit’s golden trainee. You didn’t expect Toby being the one who had decided who would be in which team? You’re surprised? Whoops.

Jaekwang and Sian were both as irrelevant to Toby as Jongin was. Jaekwang was a pretty face with nothing else to offer while Sian had potential but was just an annoying pain in the to Toby. Loud, chaotic Sian… Toby couldn’t stand him to begin with. No wonder he had ended up with a cast and a ruff. And Jongin? Jongin was not even worth being memorized. His skills were okay. His appearance was okay. He’d never be someone to even bother barging into Toby’s businesses. At least that was what Toby had expected. Until Jongin really did.

Toby was going through Bangwon’s composition, just to change major parts which indeed was pissing off the composer again and again while Sian and Geunji were sitting next to them, checking the comments on the latest promotion video.

“This video is sooo cool.“, Sian was praising them and sighing silently. It was unmistakable how disappointed he was about not being asked if he wanted to join them or not when they had come up with the competition. Toby couldn’t care less, though.

“The comments are upsetting… they are all focusing on the debut of us instead of focusing on the choreography. I put my everything into that and those lunatics don’t know how to appreciate a piece of art.“, Geunji complained and furrowed his eyebrows.

“Those lunatics are people who will decide if we will succeed or not by buying our CDs. Instead of ranting on them, you should try to find a way presenting yourself as likable as possible and keep them as hyped up as they are now.“, Toby told him with his typical expressionless face on. Did he expect Geunji to follow his advice? Not really, that guy would never follow anyone’s suggestion and he would rather run into his own misery than preventing that by listening to another man’s words.

“Make yourself likable, you annoying brat!“

Toby could only roll his eyes when the expected response followed. He decided to ignore Geunji, however. He wasn’t even worth being paid further attention by Toby. And as Geunji was resembling a little aggressive Chihuahua, as long as nobody was approaching him further, he would stay shut. That was how frightened dogs acted.

“Did anyone see Kangjoon-hyung?“, Sian asked and put his phone aside, having enough of browsing through the comments. He was stretching slightly and yawning. Toby couldn’t judge him for that. What time was it? 9 AM in the morning? “Or Jongin-hyung? Didn’t see any of them since I got up.“

“Kangjoon’s working out. Left early in the morning as I can recall.“, Toby answered and lightly shrugged with his shoulders. “He should be back soon, though. He said he’d be back before lunch.“

And he really was back before lunch. But not without a surprise.



The leader returned with a loud BOOM coming from the door being closed behind him, Taehee and Jongin. The manager had grabbed both boys at their collars from the back, pushing them inside and looking anything but happy. In fact he looked extremely furious.

“ALL OF YOU! GET HERE IMMEDIATELY!“

Toby, Geunji, Sian and Bangwon, who had already been in the living room where looking up at the three guys who had entered with only Jaekwang having to join them, slowly leaving his room to see what was the matter. Once everyone was gathered, Taehee went on his scolding.

“DID YOU ALL LOSE YOUR RIGHT MIND! YOU’RE ABOUT TO DEBUT SOON AND WHAT DO YOU DO? PARTYING IN A CAR?!“
 The boys looked at each other without responding to Taehee’s accusation. So they actually got caught. “YOU GUYS WENT VIRAL! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?“

It meant that all of them were immediately checking their phones to see what he was talking about. Taehee was right. They really went viral. And after the announcement video that Toby, Kangjoon and Geunji had uploaded, netizens had been quick to recognize Toby and therefore the other BigHit trainees as well. Toby found it pretty entertaining to see all the headlines and the different videos being posted. ‚BigHit trainees creating unrest in Seoul’s streets during night.‘, ‚Black Dragon inviting pedestrians to hop into Oppa’s car.‘ And the list went on. The comments and opinions about their spontaneous car performance were as diverse as the Black Dragon members were. There were people praising them for enjoying time together, people who were already bashing them for disrespecting people and their own entertainment, and people who were trying to figure who else was in the car and would debut among Kangjoon, Toby and Geunji.

“Bad publicity is also publicity.“, Jongin commented with a slight grin on his face before Taehee pushed him towards the couch.

“Who are you to talk?! Backstabbing your entire group?!“

“He did what?“, Bangwon finally broke his silence. It seemed as being the one getting into trouble because of one of the members directly finally activated his talking ability. “What does Taehee-hyung mean? What happened?“

“This freaking idiot made a deal with the CEO and-“, Taehee started but Jongin decided it was his job to finish the explanation.

“I negotiated with Bang PD-nim. He used the money which was originally dedicated for our debut to keep some of the trainees.“

There was an immediate shocked silence and pure devastation on the faces of the members while Taehee was still looking outraged and Jongin kept his straight face on. He didn’t look any guilty. So he was thinking he did the right thing?

“YOU DID WHAT?!“, Kangjoon yelled. “DID YOU GO NUTS?!“ The leader freed himself of the manager’s grip just to go against Jongin, grabbing the younger member’s collar himself. “Do you know what that means to us?!“

“I do.“, Jongin played it off cooly. “We didn’t have money for a perfect debut to begin with but in comparison to the trainees who almost got kicked out we have the chance to get sponsors, just like Toby mentioned before. The others won’t be able to stay by getting sponsors, but we can do what we were thinking of before: Releasing digital singles and using sponsors to get a decent video.“

Toby’s name being mentioned as one of the reasons why all of their money just went into trainees that he had considered worthless the whole time, wasn’t lightening up the boy’s mood. He was looking at Jongin with stern eyes, trying to suppress an annoyed sigh. Even with the sponsors AND the company’s money it would have been difficult. But Jongin destroyed all hopes for a decent debut. He just completely ed their group up.

“Do you think getting sponsors is that easy?“, Toby asked him seriously.

“You made it seem like it.“, Jongin answered and the two were giving each other a staring battle.

“It’s not. And even if you thought so, wouldn’t it have been the right thing to talk to us or at least the leader about this before acting on your own? Do you think it’s okay to burden the whole group with your decision? Just because you were greedy to keep your friends in the company?“, Toby reprimanded his senior. Jongin obviously was about to respond to his words but Toby was quick in getting up and taking the lead. “Everyone needs to head out NOW. We need to find sponsors. There are only 3 weeks left until we’ll debut.“



“…but how?“, Sian asked a little taken aback.

“Stick to me.“, Kangjoon told him and the maknae quickly nodded.

“Shouldn’t I stay here and work on our songs for the debut?“, Bangwon interfered with Toby’s plans.

The tall boy fiercely looked back at his senior. “If we don’t manage to get enough sponsors, there won’t be a debut.“ 

Ten hours and a giant hunt for sponsors later, the members of Black Dragon met up again in their dormitory. Toby didn’t know if there was a lot to expect from the other members as none of them had really seemed as they were having the slightest clue of how to get a sponsor. The only one he had a little faith in was Jaekwang. As a model, he at least should have known one or two labels that could support the group. But even if Jaekwang failed on this… Toby always had something up his sleeve.

When he arrived back, Jongin, Bangwon and Geunji were already sitting and waiting in the living room.

“Any success?“, Jongin asked, now finally clearly showing the guilt on his face. So he failed… well, not as if Toby expected something else. But Jongin was noted down as a troublemaker with no skills to come up for his mistakes for him.

“Did you have some?“, Toby asked back, wanting to know how it went for the others first. Let them sit on the fear that they were still ed.

“Most people we contacted refrained from cooperating because of that viral video.“, Bangwon answered. As always he was sitting in front of his PC. This time, he was checking on emails, showing Toby that he really was actively working on finding sponsors.

“I can’t believe I just joined a group that ed it up even before starting to do anything for their debut.“, Geunji commented with crossed arms, sulking like a bratty kid. “And I thought Cube or JYP are losers. I was wrong, you are.“

“'You are'? You know that you’re one of us now, too? Makes you a loser as well.“, Jongin had to clarify, seemingly unwilling to be called a loser by someone who was in the exact same situation.

Toby raised an eyebrow, looking at Geunji. Wasn’t he supposed to be one of the oldest? He looked more childish to him than Sian at the moment. Talking about him, the little noisemaker soon arrived back at the dormitory with Kangjoon and Jaekwang following him.

“This hyung knows how to work properly!“

Sounded as at least someone had been successful in finding sponsors. Sian made sure everyone knew about what exactly he was talking about soon.

"Jaekwang found us some amazing sponsors! I didn't know he could do something amazing like this!", Sian proclaimed loudly, getting all of his co-members curious.

"I have some connections. Some designers I know granted us access to some outfits and locations plus photographer for a debut shooting. But that's pretty much it... sorry that I couldn't do more.“, Jaekwang explained and looked at the ground.

"Are you kidding? You got more out of it than most of us.", Kangjoon told him and patted his back in appreciation. The visual looked at the leader with a slight smile on his lips.

Promotion photos were save in that case. That really was a good start, even though Toby had hoped that his group was capable of a little more than just one member managing to get a sponsor. Good thing they had Toby. Because Toby knew the he was doing.

"Photoshoot: check. What we need left is promotions, MV shoot and the single production. Since we are extremely low budget I'd say we go for the digital single idea. Let them download our songs and MV and get some money by paying the least we can.", he suggested.

Jongin, who should have been the one feeling most responsible for their current dilemma, didn't look too convinced of how Toby was handling their situation. "But how are we going to make them buy our digital singles? Usually people buy albums because of photocards, the booklets etc. With digital singles we have none of that."

"Easy.", Toby then answered. "Give them something more valuable than photocards or booklets. Give them fanservice. Let us have each and every person buying our single a special code that will grant them exclusive rights to attend fan - events. Fan events we can hold in front of the company. Let the fans suggest things we'll have to do. They will feel closer to us and with all the ARMYs camping in front of BigHit we might win some of them over as well by performing over there."

The boys paused their conversation to think about it and it was Bangwon who finally responded to Toby for all of them.

"Okay, that idea sounds not ideal but better than anything else we could do at the moment.", he said. "But we still need to somehow get enough money for the MV shoot and money for promotions. None of the programs will grant us enough time to promote if we can't pay them."

"About the MV... let's think about a concept first for our group. That’s what should be inspiring for us. And I admit I already thought about some. We have to produce everything on our own because of our finances, so let's go for the self-made concept. I already asked my father and he allowed us to use the helicopter runway on top of the Samsung building in Gangnam. We just need to rent a drone and a camera we can use for recording. Our strength is dancing. Let's make this MV a full performance video. We'll save money and still be able to show off what we can do." Toby was talking and talking while the others were listening. They didn't look all happy as they knew that a debut video had to be spectacular and eye-catching, not a low - budget production. But truth be told... that really was the cheapest way to solve the problem.

"Okay, I’m in.", Jongin was the first to approve to Toby's idea. "I am not in the position to complain about anything since I am the one responsible for our lack of money. But it's a decent way to bring our concept through. We just have to make sure that people know about our concept and how we're working on it. That everything is self-made."

Kangjoon moved over to join Toby on the couch to pat his shoulder just as he had done with Jaekwang before. "Look at this youngster being all business man. What would we do without you, bro?“, he asked.

“Finding another solution.“, Geunji commented unwanted as always. Toby could tell that Geunji wasn’t agreeing with the concept he came up with. That this was not what Geunji had come to BigHit for. But with all of the others taking Toby’s side soon, the newbie was left as the only one opposing.



Toby felt as if they were halfway through with the difficult part. But even with all the planing until now, there was still a very important point missing: The boys still had no sponsor to rent a drone or camera or pay the promotion fees. In times like this groups could be more than thankful to those who were in charge of saving the members’ butts. People like Taehee. If you asked Toby, Toby would have said that Ahn Taehee was anything but a capable manager. Yet, that was the reason why he liked him so much. He was easy to manipulate. He was the perfect tool for people like Toby to get what they wanted. Lousy, desperate people. Lousy, desperate people that to his surprise could be helpful at times.

Taehee arrived just 15 minutes after the boys had set up their plans for debut. He was out of breath, he was all sweaty and he was smiling over his whole face. “I found a sponsor!“

Whatever Taehee had been talking about before… what he had found wasn’t really a sponsor. It was more of an opportunity to gain some sponsors. None of the boys was sure of how Taehee had made it happen that Black Dragon was allowed to perform at Seoul’s HERA Fashion Week, but he secured them a performance spot. With that performance given, the boys could impress the audience and get themselves one or two sponsors. If they succeeded and delivered an outstanding performance. If, just if.

The problem was that they had less than a week to prepare and the group had so many things on their agenda that it was barely possible to work properly. Since the easiest for them was to just pull a dance performance, it was soon set that what they would do was dancing only. For now they had divided the tasks like this: While Toby, Geunji, Kangjoon and Sian were working together on a choreography, Bangwon had to finish first samples of two debut songs. In the meantime Jongin and Jaekwang had to find other sponsors just in case the Fashion Week would be a flop.



“We won’t be able to nail this.“, Kangjoon told the others in all honesty. “I don’t mean to be insulting but look at Jaekwang. Someone like him will never be able to dance this choreography. You two came up with a choreography that Sian and I barely manage to dance… how will Bangwon, Jongin and Jaekwang manage then? This is impossible.“



Toby stopped his self-mixed music file and looked at Kangjoon, suppressing to show any kind of negative sentiment on his face. “Then we have to teach them properly.“

“But how? How much of the choreography did we finish until now? 20 seconds? And we have to prepare everything until the weekend. We won’t manage. Let’s go for something easier.“, Kangjoon tried to convince him.

“What the hell are you talking about? What happened to you being an intimidating jerk who thinks he can do everything?“, Geunji beefed. He must have felt attacked in his pride as a choreographer. “I didn’t get beaten by you two just to back off my choreography now! , if that kid can’t dance, kick him out of the group! I don’t know why he’s part of Black Dragon anyway! Is there anything he can do besides looking pretty?!“

Sian immediately looked alarmed when he heard Geunji demanding to kick Jaekwang out. He quickly grabbed Kangjoon’s arm and started shaking it to make him react and prevent anything bad from happening.

“We can’t kick out anyone!“, Kangjoon refused to give any space to that suggestion. “And I am just trying to tell you two that we will fail this choreography like this!“

“We need to train the entire time.“ That was the only solution Toby had. There was no kicking out of members, also there was no space to alter the choreography too much. They had to present something that was better than most of other stuff that idol groups came up with. Toby knew that he could pull such a choreography. He also knew that Geunji could do that. Kangjoon, Sian, Jongin and even Bangwon. The only problem was Jaekwang. “Jaekwang will have to practice more than anyone else.“

“I doubt that that will be enough.“, Kangjoon still worried and while the boys were discussing, the door of the training room was suddenly opened and Jongin and Jaekwang entered… followed by two girls. Arora’s Chaerin and Shigure. Kangjoon immediately stiffened when he saw the two girls entering their area.

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be kissing asses right now? To get some sponsors?“, Geunji asked blatantly, gaining a short angry glance of Jongin.

“We couldn’t find any, so we did something else. We’re making sure that our performance will be one of a kind.“, Jongin answered. So that was what he was planning? Adding the two main dancers of Arora to the performance?

Toby examined the two girls, Shigure glaring at him, standing there with her arms crossed like an angry child. Yeah… Shigure and Toby were… anything but friends. And as much as she disliked him, he disliked her back. Maybe even more. Chaerin next to Shigure didn’t look that much different - just that she was trying to stare down Geunji. Of course… one of her best friends had been kicked out of the line-up because of him. It was just natural that Chaerin didn’t like Geunji.

“We’re just helping because Jongin asked us to. We’re doing that for him.“, Chaerin made her point pretty clear to begin with and then further scowled at Geunji who raised an eyebrow before he scowled back but with that mixture of ‚What the heck?‘ and ‚Step aside, b****!‘ basically being written on his face.



Little Sian seemed to oversee all the tensions in the room. Or did he just ignore them? At least he was all hyped up seeing all those top notch dancers of BigHit gathered in their training room. It was evoking happiness in his face. And an idea that wasn’t even that bad.


“Hey, how about each of us choreographing a part of the choreography and then teaching it to each other? That way we might bring in diversity into the dance and work faster.“, Sian suggested. There was no long discussing about it and all of them started working, except for Jongin and Jaekwang who both watched the others working on the choreography.


During the time they all were working on their different parts, in front of the glass door of the room the returned trainees started gathering. Halo, Evan, David, Haejoon, Taehyuk and Ilsung were standing behind the closed door, every now and then exchanging glances with Jongin and Jaekwang. When the others took a short break, Sian ran over to Jongin to ask him about something that had caught his attention when he noticed the trainees watching.

“Hyung… where are Hyukjae and Yoosung?“, he wanted to know and looked over to the glass door, where those two were missing among the trainees. Sian waved at the trainees who awkwardly waved back. They were just watching but they didn't dare to come inside.

“They both left.“, Chaerin answered instead of Jongin, sounding seriously sore about it.

“What? But I thought that Jongin did this all mainly because of Yoosung and Hyukjae…“ Sian looked puzzled and devastated at the same time. It was as if all the bad news had suddenly hit him at once and now that he noticed, his world started crumbling. What did he expect? Toby would have done the same. To be frank, he had tried to do exactly the same before Taehee had asked him to join Black Dragon. Right now he was even thinking that Yoosung and Hyukjae had been luckier than any of them.

“Oh great! That means you threw out all our money to debut for nothing?“, Geunji barged into the conversation, attacking Jongin head-on.

“Hey, who asked you for your opinion?! It’s your fault that Hyukjae left! Show some respect!“, Chaerin started fronting immediately. She was as vivid as if she was mourning someone’s death and Geunji had attempted to defile her friend’s tomb.

“Respect for who? Some talentless, ugly freaks?“, Geunji immediately huffed back.

“TALENTLESS, UGLY FREAKS?! HOW DARE YOU SAYING THAT, YOU STUPID ! YOU DON'T EVEN DESERVE TO BE HERE!“, Chaerin started to go against Geunji, walking towards him, wanting to punch him. Jongin quickly got up from his spot on the floor to grab Chaerin and pull her away from the Black Dragon wrecking ball aka Geunji.

“You come at me, b-!“, Geunji wanted to yell back at her but Kangjoon grabbed him from behind, covering his mouth with his hand and putting him into a headlock. Kangjoon was a lot stronger than Geunji, the younger of the two tried to get himself free again but failed with every single attempt.

The trainees in front of the door were watching with big, shocked eyes. Fantastic. Just fantastic. Give the others the best impression of yourself. Well done, Black Dragon. Toby couldn’t be any more proud.

“Can you please stop that and go on working? We don’t have that much time and especially not for this, alright?“, he muttered and passed by Kangjoon and Geunji to go on practicing his part of the choreography.

Late in the night the group members were still occupying the room and the trainees in front of the door had already disappeared. Jongin and Jaekwang both were watching the others starting to connect all the puzzle pieces of the choreography to a whole thing in pure terror. Jongin’s face was showing his ‚We are so done.‘ thoughts while Jaekwang had gotten so pale, he must have thought of already being dead by how the others were executing the dance.

They were almost completely done with Toby teaching the final part. “Think of traditional Martial Arts. It should be easy since most Koreans attend classes when they’re younger.“, he started.

“Wow, Toby-hyung, you learned Martial Arts in Germany, too?“, Sian asked surprised.

“Germany?“, Geunji voiced out the question crossing his mind and stared at Toby.

“Toby’s from Germany.“, Kangjoon explained. “You didn’t notice?“



Geunji looked dumbfounded at the leader before his expression changed into something of more angered nature. “But you look Korean! And you speak Korean! If you’re not Korean what are you even doing here?!“

“Hey, I’m not Korean either, does that make me less worth?!“ Shigure placed her hands on her hips and gnashed her teeth, hearing Geunji talk to Toby like that. The first time they were on the same side was because they had something in common. Or not. Toby wasn’t giving her that. He was Korean. And she was Japanese. Never would he put himself on the same side as a Japanese.

“I am Korean, calm down.“, Toby cleared the misunderstanding but got a side comment of Shigure instantly.

“Half-Korean.“, she corrected him. Toby threw a short glance over to her to notice her having a satisfied little smirk sneaking up her lips. That…

All of the people inside the room were in the worst mood ever. It was late, they were tired, hungry and exhausted. And they didn’t even get along that well with each other. Even to Toby who had mastered the art of hiding his real thoughts, it had gotten nerve-wrecking. “Back to the choreography. So, you all should know the basics right?“, Toby tried to go on but Geunji was taking Shigure’s words a little too much to heart and threw another attack on Toby.

“You think because I am Asian I know Kung Fu? I know Kung- you, racist piece of !“, he snapped at the young member who couldn’t help this time but inertly sigh about how stupid this guy actually could be.

“It’s Taekwondo, dude.“, he at least wanted to rectify.

“Stupid idiot.“, the boys heard Chaerin saying from the back of the room and back they were in fighting mood.

“HOW DID YOU CALL ME, UGLY WENCH?!“

In situations like this Toby deeply regretted agreeing on joining a boygroup. As a solo artist he wouldn’t have to bear with all this . He wouldn’t have had problems with financing his debut, there wouldn’t be fights all the time… no, everything would be chill.

And this? This was far from it. Toby hated it. Toby hated Black Dragon.


 

author notes

New chapter up! And who was waiting for a Toby POV as well? I originally planned this POV to be Sian's but a wild Toby appeared randomly and told me he would take over. So here we go, looking inside of his head for a bit.
Thank you all for being so patient with me and my irregular updates. I'm wondering when I'll make it to update on Black Dragon Day ever again x'D Also thank you to everyone who wished me good luck for my dance competition a while ago ^-^ 
For the next chapter I'll reveal the debut song and line distribution! :) Stay tuned~! 

“ In a world full of wolves, try to be the alpha. ”