Eunji strolled into the club room at five o’clock sharp. The night before, Minseok had told everyone in the FaceNovel group chat to meet up in the evening, rather than straight after class. Eunji assumed that the third year was preparing for his “member event”, as Suho liked to call it.

Immediately, Eunji was greeted by the fragrance of coffee beans. She scanned the room and saw Minseok setting up a couple of desks, that were connected at the sides, with a coffee machine and a variety of refreshments. Behind Minseok stood Jongdae and Kyungsoo, who were busy helping Minseok making sure everything was in place.

“Eunji!” Jongdae shouted in excitement when he saw her entering the room. “You’re here!”

“Yes, I am sunbae,” Eunji chuckled.

“Thank you for stating the obvious,” Kyungsoo said coolly. Jongdae turned to face Kyungsoo and stuck his tongue out at him.

“Glad you could make it, Eunji,” Minseok said as his mouth formed into that half-smirk that he wore so well. That, paired with the fact that Minseok was dressed in black dress pants, white dress shirt and a tight black vest, was enough to make Eunji go crazy. She bit her lip to prevent herself from making incoherent sounds of excitement, and possibly drooling.

“What’s up with the formal wear?” Eunji asked, doing a quick scan of the third year’s body. Minseok usually dressed in casual wear and baggy clothing, so seeing him in a well-fitted dress shirt was rare. His arms were muscular, and his torso was defined. He had rolled his sleeves up halfway to his elbows, so when he picked up a large bowl of fruits, the veins on his arms popped into view.

‘Thank the heavens. I know I was saving this prayer for my next Math test, but screw it I’m using it now. Dear Lord, all I want for Christmas is Kim Minseok,’ thought Eunji.

“Ah, this? It’s just my uniform. I work part-time at Starbucks,” Minseok replied with a smile. “Care for some fruit?”

‘Note to self: don’t go to Tim Horton’s anymore. Even if Starbucks is expensive, you’re going there from now on,’ Eunji decided, determined to catch a glimpse of Minseok working.

“Sure, thanks!” Eunji chimed and grabbed a strawberry from the bowl. She plopped it in and savoured the sweetness of the fruit. “And that’s cool, I didn’t know you worked there. Which location do you work at? It must be pretty hard to balance school, an afterschool club and a part-time job.”

“Not really,” Minseok started. “I usually have the morning shift at work, and since I’m a morning person, I don’t mind. I usually get an hour or two of work in before I head off to school. I work at the Starbucks right beside our school, the one in the plaza.”

“What time do you get up at then?”

“Around four in the morning? Sometimes four-thirty if I feel lazy,” Minseok replied nonchalantly and placed the bowl of fruits back down on the desks. “The store opens at five.”

Eunji forced her jaw from dropping. During summer vacation, Eunji slept at four in the morning, and here she was standing in front of someone who woke up at the same time she went to sleep. ‘Well there goes my attempt at catching a glimpse of him at work,’ she sighed in disappointment.

.::.           .::.           .::.

By five-thirty, all the members of the After School Club had gathered in room 3003. Minseok stood at the front of the classroom and spoke into a microphone. “Thanks for coming, everyone. Welcome to my coffee house! I’ve prepared a variety of snacks and help yourself to some coffee that I got from work. If you want me to make you a latte drawing, let me know and I can do that for you. The mic is open to anyone, so feel free to come up and share a talent!”

Ahri sat beside Eunji and whispered excitedly, “Did you hear that?”

“Free Starbucks coffee?” Eunji asked.

“No, we get free fancy coffee drawings! I’m totally getting one!” Ahri squealed.

“You do that,” Eunji laughed at her sunbae’s excitement over a cup of coffee. “If this is a coffee house, don’t you usually have to sign up for an act beforehand? I didn’t hear anything.”

“Me neither,” Ahri shrugged her shoulders.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Kris interjected. The egotistical upper year student had been sitting beside the girls. “Knowing the guys in this club, someone’s bound to take the stage – ah spoke too soon. Look who’s already on the stage.”

Eunji directed her eyes to the front of the classroom, and tried to bite back her smile. She nudged Ahri to get her attention, then added in a suggestive tone “Yeah, look who’s on the stage, Ahri.”

Ahri scrunched her eyebrows, confused by her hoobae’s words. When she directed her attention to the front of the classroom however, her confusion disappeared as quickly as it had come. Baekhyun was standing at the front of the classroom, fidgeting with the microphone stand. Chanyeol was sitting on a chair next to him, holding a guitar. “Shut up,” Ahri mumbled to Eunji, trying to be serious. Her plan failed however, when the massive smile that she had been trying to hide slipped through and onto her lips.

“Uh, so I’ll be singing a song for you all,” Baekhyun spoke into the microphone. Contrary to his usual childish demeanor, the infamous prankster wore a serious expression. “It’s a song that Chanyeol and I worked on. It’s called Lucky.”

Eunji was blown away by Chanyeol’s guitar playing skills, and even more impressed with Baekhyun’s singing. When they had gone to karaoke, Baekhyun hadn’t sang because when Growl was playing, he had been too occupied with pouring hot sauce in the oolong teas. This had been the first time she had heard his voice, and it was the perfect mix of raspy and melodic.

Eunji looked over to Ahri, wondering what kind of expression she had on her face. If she had reacted this way to his singing, how was Ahri feeling she wondered? Ahri’s eyes were fixated on Baekhyun, and for a while Eunji wondered if her friend had forgotten how to blink. Ahri didn’t utter a single sound during the entire sound, nor did she move. She sat in place taking in the sight before her, desperately trying to etch every detail of the performance into her memory.

When Baekhyun and Chanyeol finished their act, the audience gave them a standing ovation. “You didn’t blink; you know that?” Eunji friend.

“Well, I didn’t want to miss a single millisecond of it,” Ahri cleared and tried her best to stay composed. “It’s not every day you get to hear Byun Baekhyun sing.”

As soon as Baekhyun and Chanyeol took their seats, Jongdae strode up to the front of the room dragging along a very upset-looking Kyungsoo. “We’re here to do an improv act!” Jongdae exclaimed.

“We? You mean you,” Kyungsoo protested and tried to squirm free of Jongdae’s grip. “I am not going along with this. You could have picked anyone from the audience, why me?”

“Because I know you secretly love acting, Kyungsoo-ah,” Jongdae said matter-of-factly, like he had revealed a big secret.

“Wha- who said that” Kyungsoo asked, eyes wide in shock. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ah, no use in playing games with me. Don’t pretend you don’t know that I’ve seen you read Shakespeare’s plays before. You’re a big fan of the theatre! This is your time to shine!” Jongdae said with his signature grin.

“I had to read that for one of my classes!” Kyungsoo shouted, not impressed by Jongdae’s deduction. “Reading a play doesn’t mean I want to be in one, you idiot!”

Unexpectedly, the crowd started bursting into laughter. Eunji was holding her stomach and laughing loudly. There was something about Jongdae’s natural troll-yness and Kyungsoo’s eminent hatred for him (and Baekhyun and Chanyeol) that made the entire scene hilarious. “Is this supposed to be an improv act or a stand-up comedy show?” Tao said through his laughter.

“See, the crowd loves you! You can’t leave your fans waiting!” Jongdae whined while shaking Kyungsoo’s arm. The shorter member heaved a sigh with closed eyes and it was evident that he was having an internal battle with himself. ‘How should I kill Kim Jongdae? When should I do it? Tonight or tomorrow? Tomorrow,’ Kyungsoo thought. ‘I know the perfect way too. Get rid of his dinosaur plushie and you destroy him.’

“Sure,” Kyungsoo finally said with a smile. Immediately, Jongdae let go of his arm and backed away from the shorter member.

“You- what are you thinking of doing?” asked a suspicious Jongdae.

“What ever could you mean?” Kyungsoo asked, almost too innocently.

“You’re thinking of something, and it’s scaring me. You scare me when you smile, bro,” Jongdae said nervously. ‘What’s he thinking of? Ohmygod what if he wants to hurt my Rex?’ Jongdae gulped as he thought about his beloved T-Rex plush toy. He had received it for his fifth birthday from his parents, and it was one of his prized possessions. Everyone in the club knew that he was obsessed with it when they had visited Jongdae at his house once and he had refused to let anyone so much as touch the stuffed toy.

‘I am so getting rid of… what's its name again? Rex? Bye bye, Rex,’ Kyungsoo thought, letting a devilish smirk form on his face.

“Ah- owch!” Jongdae shouted as he feigned tripping and fell on the floor. “I am in so much pain, I don’t think I can do the improv! The show cannot go on!”

Kyungsoo sighed and crossed his arms. He was not buying the whole act, and ordered the other member to get up. “And you wanted to do improv with this kind of acting.”

Jongdae got up and pretended to limp off the stage. “Sorry folks, not tonight!” Jongdae announced and made his way to the refreshments. ‘He is not harming my Rex.’

‘I’m still gonna rip Rex to shreds,’ Kyungsoo thought. For some reason that he would never understand, the crowd had been laughing the entire time. Kyungsoo did a quick bow and made his way back to his seat. He did, however, notice that Jongdae was trying to get on his better side when he brought a cup of coffee and a plate of fruits to Kyungsoo. Jongdae hoped that it would act as a peace offering. Kyungsoo snatched the food from him, then smirked and said nothing causing Jongdae to sweat nervously.

After the singing and the stand-up comedy, Luhan took the stage and attempted to read poetry. He was quickly interrupted by Tao’s sudden outburst, demanding to know if the watermelon in the fruit bowl was organic or not, because apparently the boy did not consume “non-organic watermelon”. Yixing was standing in one corner repeating the lines of a song he had written himself, with his back turned to everyone. No one approached Yixing because sometimes he acted like that and quite frankly, no one understood what he was doing half the time.

Kris was at the coffee station the entire night, asking Minseok to teach him how to make latte drawings. Kai and Sehun were enjoying the show, recording everything on SnapConverse and adding it to the Snap stories. Meanwhile, Suho was sitting in the centre of the crowd, hands in his lap and not even bothering to hide the smile on his face. He was happily taking in every little thing that his friends were doing, whether it be dumb or absolutely ridiculous.

There was never a dull moment with these guys.

A/N: 2017 is right around the corner! Whew, 2016 sure flew by fast o.o New year, new me, right? Do you have a New Year's resolution? If so, what is it? Let me know :) Mine is to improve myself as a writer (i.e. incorporate writing into my daily life and to hopefully not give up on it again >.< )

\\ xoxo