“What a beautiful sight isn’t it?” asked Dongwoo to CL. “Seeing Yura and Sungjong together never gets old.”

“Hell yeah,” agreed CL. “They’re so cute I wanna squish them to bits. Wanna mess around with them?”

Dongwoo’s eyes widened as he predicted her next move and tried to grab her. “Hey, you—“

But he was too late. CL had reflexes like a fox and executed her plan efficiently.

“Oops! Sorry ‘bout that!” She said with a really loud and fake giggle. “Have fun!”

Although Dongwoo scrunch his face, he couldn’t because Sungjong happened to fall toward Yura who caught him with a hug. Both of them blushed as they were stuck in each other’s embrace. In the center of that crowded classroom, they had their moment, and that moment they shared with the entire class.

Both were taken aback and abashed at the same time. Regardless, they had no choice; they just had to hold onto each other until one of them pulled away.

Secretly, neither one of them wanted to.

“Sungjong,” she finally said as if an earthquake was happening inside . “Please, let go. You’re ing heavy.”

Still tomato red, he apologized, let go, and dusted his jacket for no reason. Neither one of them spoke and the conversation was dragging into an awkwardly dead end.

Yura decided to confirm the hopelessness of the situation by chicly patting his shoulder once and said, “I gotta sketch before class.”

She then brushed past him and proceeded to draw on her desk, trying to act as if nothing had happened. She drew nothing but roses for the next ten minutes; her hand couldn’t get rid of the spark it felt from what she treated as an intensely intense form of human contact. For the rest of the morning, she didn’t touch anyone else and thought about nothing but those few seconds, grinning secretly whenever she could.

---

“That’s a good façade you got there,” scoffed Jinyoung, leaning against a tree chicly. The wind blew past his hair that beautifully covered his face in stripe-shaped shadows, giving those small seen areas to emphasize the applause in his smirk. “Lee Sungjong.”

Standing across Jinyoung, Sungjong’s eyebrows wrinkled intensely. “What?” He glared at him straight in the eye so ferociously with his big round eyes, catching the president weak-kneed from the pang it sent. “What kind of bull are you playing at?”

Jinyoung grinned, rolled his eyes, and wagged his finger at him. “You can’t play hide-and-seek with me.” He turned his wagging into a direct point. “You got scouted.”

“What—“

“By a top company at that. Woollim, was it?”

Sungjong bit his lip; he was caught red-handed.

Jinyoung lifted his thumb to make his point into a gunshot. “Bang!” He smirked. “Gotcha.”

“H-how’d you find out?” Sungjong asked nervously while trying to keep tough. It wasn’t working.

“Simple. I witnessed everything. After the performance during our little beach vacation, some scout approached you when you were the only one left. Only you. And you know what that means.” He could only sigh over the sad truth. “If you accept this once in a lifetime offer, you will have to leave the guys who have been with you from the very beginning,” Jinyoung continued.

“I know that.” Sungjong clenched his fists and gnashed his teeth. “I know that very well.”

It was a difficult decision to make. In a world where a musician would grab any chance he’d get just to make it big, it was hard to stumble upon being scouted by a big company. He thirsted for that, but when it actually happened, it was like tasting the most sour gummy worm in the world; the sourness pinches deeply, but the sweetness remained. It was the same in making his decision. Despite knowing the sacrifices he had to make, the thought of debuting in a well-off company gave him assurance.

Jinyoung’s voice trailed back in. “Not to mention, that includes…”

“Sungjong!” Yura was waving from afar. “I finally found you!”

Upon seeing her, his heart ached and his tears were trying to escape him. But he held it in for her, or rather, for himself. He wasn’t ready.

She hit him hard on the shoulder playfully. Somehow, that comforted him a little. “It’s lunch time and you’re nowhere to be found!” She extended her open palm. “Pay for half of my food.”

He chuckled. “That isn’t like you.”

“Caught me.” She withdrew her hand and playfully jumped to the direction of the cafeteria. “Let’s go, Jong!”

“Alright, wait up!”

The two left Jinyoung as they usually would. He didn’t mind too much; he knew that they had other things to resolve. Still, he hated being dubbed as the that always got ignored. Sungjong’s “chance” was his chance too. It was a chance to possibly make room for him to fill up that empty space.

Lunch went by like that. Sungjong pretended to act as if nothing had happened, while Yura pretended not to notice that his eyes were weary. Others probably haven’t noticed it, but she was too observant to let it slide. It boggled her to see him feel troubled, but she felt that he didn’t want to speak. And while she didn’t understand it very well, her gut told her not to ask him either no matter how curious she was.

---

School had just finished when 60 Seconds and the three girls entered the band room for their usual jam session. Everyone was in their normal mood; CL was mocking Dongwoo, Sunggyu was being teased by Hyuna, and Myungsoo was laughing with Sungyeol over a childish inside joke.

Truly, everything was at its right mood.

Everything—except for—those two.

Unable to contain her burdening thoughts, Yura gulped and asked, “What’s wrong?”

That deadly question made Sungjong jolt up. “Nothing.”

“Nothing is something,” she said.

He fiddled with his fingers and remained silent.

“Sungjong, are you hiding something?” she finally asked.

It was time; he couldn’t do anything as he couldn’t lie.

“Look at me.” By then her hand had subconsciously crept closer to his. “I’m serious. Why do you look so miserable?”

His hand, too, had moved closer to hers making their index fingers touch. “Yura, you’d probably kill me if you’d find out. Not just you, everyone will go against me.”

That got her thinking. Everyone was doing fine; it was a finally tranquil era where none of them were conflicted. She thought that CL’s problem was the last of it and that their sentimental time around the candlelight was the conclusion. She was dead wrong.

“What’s this all about?” asked Sunggyu from the other side of the room. Little did the two know that they were actually being spectated by the others for quite sometime.

Sungyeol sensed the magnitude of the situation. “Spill it out.”

“Yeah, spill it,” added Myungsoo. “You said you’re going to be dead anyway.”

“Hey, hey, we should chill,” urged Dongwoo. “Aren’t we being a little too hard on him?”

“Yeah.” Yura agreed. “What if he’s just overreacting or something?”

Sunggyu folded his arms and shook his head. “No. Sungjong never overemphasizes things. When he knows he’s gonna get beat—he’s gonna get beat hard. I just smell the scent of cowardice from here.”

The cat was out of the bag; there was no escape to it. It was time to admit everything that had transpired that night. From then on, everything that he said would be judged by faces so pissed off that keeping eye contact would be the same as being stabbed in the heart by a big sharp needle.

He stood in the center of the room for them to see. His heart was beating fast and cold sweat seeped out from his scalp. Everyone surrounded him in a messy circle across the borders of the room, giving him mixed looks of anger, nervous anticipation, and worry.

He took a deep breath and began to speak, “I’ve been scouted—“

“Come here you little prick!” Sungyeol couldn’t contain his anger and jumped out of his seat only to be stopped by Myungsoo.

“Yeol, let’s let this bastard finish,” said his boyfriend, gripping onto Sungyeol’s arms as tightly as he could to contain him.

“Fine.” He went back to his seat as much as he wanted to beat the out of Sungjong. “Continue.”

And continue, he did. “After our performance at the beach, someone approached me and handed me a business card. It was someone from Woollim Entertainment; they guaranteed me a solo career. At first, I was going to reject it, but…”

Sunggyu, slowly walked around him. “But what? It’s your dream, your passion; no one gets a chance like that, is that it?”

Even though it was said bluntly, it was true.

“Then I would assume that you’re ready to leave us and go your separate way, am I right?”

“Sunggyu… Everyone…” The leader knew everything from the moment he said he was scouted. “I’m sorry.”

Sungyeol was no longer restrained by his boyfriend; he was set free to say whatever he wanted. And it wasn’t the least bit pleasant. He dashed toward Sungjong at lightning speed and gave him a powerful blow on the cheek. Pain went through Sungjong’s bleeding lips as he fell to the floor.

“You think a simple ‘sorry’ would resolve things? After all we’ve been through…” His tears of anger burst. “After what you said during our last night at the beach, you were just going to do this! You are discrediting everything that we said! What about friendship? What about sticking together as a five-member band?”

Sunggyu sighed and continued, “We all know it’s hard to make it big. We all know the magnitude of your situation. It is something that one needs to give an immense sacrifice for, but Sungjong, I just want you to know that not all big sacrifices come with reason. I hope that you’re smart enough to think that way.”

Unable to answer, he shifted the attention to Yura who had been quiet all this time. “Yura…”

Without uttering a single word, Yura stood up, slowly walked to the door, and paused briefly. Following that, she opened the door calmly, but swung her hand so swiftly that it left a bang so that echoed across the room. It sounded like thunder trying to blow the walls out.

BANG!

The door shuddered as she left the room; its lashed out sound echoed through their ears. She needed not speak a single word. That was her stand on the matter.

With the smashing close of the door marked Sungjong’s separation from the group. The rest followed suit, leaving the room one by one solemnly as if performing a parting ritual. As they did so, Sungjong cried his hardest, shrieking and inhaling choppily the same suffocating air the group left him with. He couldn’t turn back; it was right then and there that he changed his destiny.

For better or for worse.

So finally, it was Sungjong. That is how to piss off 7 people in one go :)).

Also, I had a review done for this fic. I got 75 points~ You guys can check it out here. :) [Special thanks to the reviewer, Fan_ of_Karma]

Thank you for reading and I hope you guys enjoyed it~! :D