“Underline” Speaking English

 

“Normal” – speaking Korean

 

Part XI

 

“Are they here yet?” Saki asked for about the hundredth time in a row.

 

Lee Gi Kyo sighed and playfully threw a cushion at the child who was standing on one of the opposite sofas looking out of the window, “Saki, if you ask that one more time I’m seriously going to get annoyed.”

 

Turning around, the girl huffed playfully at him before throwing the cushion back towards the orange/brown haired boy, giggled and then returned to her previous occupation of staring out of the window. Today was finally the day when all of her Oppa’s would be back together and they were all going to live in this lovely house together and it would be such fun.

 

Kyo sighed again and leaned back, “Mama Bear, your daughter is getting angsty.”

 

“Well what do you expect?” Bradley called from the kitchen as he was in the process of sorting out enough lunch for everyone, “If someone hadn’t gone and told her that the others were coming today then we wouldn’t have this problem. Saki, you better not have your shoes on the sofa.”

 

“I’m in my socks!” the now five year old girl replied, flopping back onto the seat, “When will they be here Daddy?”

 

“Soon, baby, soon,” Bradley called back, “Just be patient.”

 

Watching the exchange with interest, mainly because he couldn’t quite keep up with the English that was going back and forth between the pair, Kyo was glad that he had had a few weeks to get used to the girl. He had been genuinely surprised when he had first met Bradley, Jaeshik and Kyung and been introduced to Saki, but it hadn’t taken the girl long to make a firm, if more grown up, friend in the boy. Glancing at his watch, he frowned, “Kyung’s back late isn’t he?”

 

“Probably trying to sneak into orientation to see if the others are here or not,” Bradley appeared around the corner, tea towel in hand as he dried them off, “Saki, do me a favour and go and rustle up Jae will you? Lunch is nearly ready and he’ll want to get first dibs on the grub before Kyung.”

 

The little girl nodded and hopped down, glad to have something to do in order to distract her from the long waiting game that she had been playing. With it being February the weather had played havoc with Jae and he was suffering with one of his usual colds. So he had been given a lie in to try and sort everything out. Kyung had gone to attend his classes but would be back in a little while. Bradley was officially on time with his daughter as was now part of his contract and Kyo was being given allowance off to meet the rest of the group.

 

Kyo blinked, “If he’s sick, surely you should take the food up to him?”

 

“Nah,” Bradley shook his head, “Jae hates it. Unless he’s dying and can’t move. This is just a cold, the best thing to do is to send him to bed excluding when it’s time to eat. Just the way he is.”

 

“You really do know how to look after everyone don’t you Mama Bear?” Kyo said with a smirk, trying to settle his nerves because whilst he got on fine with the three he met he had never really had a chance to meet the others before and he didn’t want to have any problems.

 

Chuckling, Bradley ruffled the other’s hair to annoy him, “Stop panicking, trust me if you can put up with Jae and Kyung you’ll get on fine with the others. It’s going to be great to have everyone back together again though.”

 

Flopping onto the same sofa that Saki had been on before, the red haired male stared out with a great feeling of excitement in his heart. It was amazing to think that around five and a half months ago he had been on the verge of getting arrested for trespassing until his good old Dad had turned up, verbally kicked their old manager up the and dragged him off home. There was still a fine to pay naturally, he wasn’t going to get away completely cleanly but he had accepted it as it was and sorted it out because he really did not want to go back to court again.

 

Being back home had been an eye opener to just how badly off he was and also to how underfed both of them were. Annie, his darling little mother, had fussed and faffed on with him and Saki for the better part of two weeks before finally agreeing to allow Bradley to at least work at the Onsen to start earning some proper money to pay off everything. Davy was more than happy to employ his little brother as a cook and entertainer and Bradley was glad of the work.

 

In the early part of December, shortly after the boys and Saki had an early mini Christmas break, he had been approached by a representative of the H/UN Group who wanted to propose a deal. It took three further visits to convince him to at least speak to the representative’s boss and he had been genuinely surprised with the man who seemed more concerned with how he was managing to raise Saki, who had also been invited along to the meeting, by himself in such horrible circumstances. Within the next month he had auditioned and been accepted on a new contract with the H/UN group and had moved into the house which he now shared with Kyo, Kyung, Jae and Saki.

 

There were clauses in his contract to ensure that he got time with his daughter that she would be fully protected and wouldn’t get exploited for her position in the slightest. The only thing that he had to agree to was to do a show with the girl, something he had been iffy about, until he had met the team behind the ever popular Hello Baby and they proposed a series which would basically just be the pair of them doing the usual family things. No set ups, no scripts, just a couple hours of them being father and daughter. Simple and easy. Saki had taken all of two seconds to agree to it once she realised that it would basically give her complete access to her Daddy for a couple of hours a week after the debut of the new group. He had been initially worried that he wouldn’t get on with his new band mates but upon realising that the H/UN group were basically buying BrightSide out, he had stopped worrying and started looking forward to them all being back together.

 

Lee Gi Kyo was the first to arrive to the new house, as the H/UN group preferred giving their groups a more home from home feel than the dorms that most companies used. In fact instead of having their groups travel far as wide, they had set up a sort of company campus which housed not only the studios and film locations but also a reasonable sized estate with its own little shopping complex, leisure and education facilities and plenty of housing for the idols, trainees, managers, employees and their families should they choose to move in. There was only one curfew being midnight to be back on the main campus if you had to leave for any reason and weren’t out on company business but otherwise the area was pretty much free reign. Even the managers had their own places, usually right next door to the group’s house, so there was a lot more pressure on the leaders to keep their groups inline but somehow it kind of just sorted itself out. Leastways Bradley hadn’t heard of any problem’s which was a good thing.

 

Shortly after the arrival of Kyo, both Kyung and Jaeshik had turned up having signed up together after they left JustHi though neither one had initially realised that they were in the same orientation meeting. Bradley had found it hilarious that neither had noticed but loved it all the more. They were told that the other five members of BrightSide would be joining them at the end of February but there were a few contractual problems to sort out first and they were also told that they would be getting a new group name as that they couldn’t buy the original title from JustHi. Bradley was quite thankful for that, he had never been an overly big fan of their name anyway. Since there was no real company decision as to what to name the group, other than the name having to have ‘Rainbow’ in the title to fit in with the ‘Gay Pride’ status that they would be getting, the four of them had put their heads together one night after Saki had been put to bed and eventually come up with a provisional name which they rather liked.

 

Rainbow Star PRISM. Or R-Star PRISM as it had been shortened to in order to make it sound a little bit cooler. Jongki would probably get the final call but it was certainly something different and quite catchy.

 

Their new manager, Jang Kuso, seemed rather taken with it and had processed it through to the management for verification. In comparison to Iseul, Kuso was a proper breath of fresh air as he was more like a big brother than a manager; well a very organised big brother who knew how to manage a bunch of rowdy boys and was genuinely friendly and a very family based man. He had taken to Saki very quickly and had no problems in looking after her in the slightest, he eve had set up some play dates with his own daughter who was the same age and arranged for Saki to transfer to the same school as her when they became best friends overnight. When Bradley asked how, Kuso had just laughed and said, “Your Saki is a beautiful child and my Yuki only likes beautiful children. They just clicked within five seconds of knowing each other.”

 

Now all they had to do was wait for the others to join them and they would be complete. He grinned and glanced towards Kyo, “Shut up.”

 

“What? I didn’t say anything, Mama Bear,” he frowned towards the elder with a grin, knowing that he had been caught. It had taken him next to no time to start calling the groups eldest by the curious nickname and he could fully understand why he had been christened with such a title. It felt good to know that in this new group there was someone who would look after them all dearly and not just shut down when things got tough. Even though Bradley wasn’t the leader, he knew that he would at the very least help to shoulder some of the responsibilities.

 

“You didn’t need to,” Bradley said back, sticking his tongue out at the other, “You’re face said it all. Oh Kyung’s back.”

 

The hyperactive ball of energy was indeed back, coming through the door and quite literally hopping over the back of the sofa to land on Bradley’s lap, “Jongki and Kiyeol are here, I briefly glimpsed them in the tour. Haven’t seen the others yet but it shouldn’t be long now!”

 

Pushing the other off, Bradley pulled a face, “Good grief, will you not do that after dance practice. You reek!”

 

“Huh, who’s reeking?” Jae’s voice came into the conversation, half muffled by a tissue which he was using to blow his nose with before he spotted Kyung, “Oh never mind. What were you saying about the others?”

 

“Seen the leader and maknae,” Kyung said, from his position on the floor as Bradley had plonked his feet on the other’s chest, “they were getting the tour. Haven’t seen the others yet.”

 

Saki was quick to jump in on the sitting game, landing on the boy’s chest, “Oppa Ki and Yelo are here? Where where where?”

 

“Orientation, Saki” Bradley said, chuckling as Kyung tried to get up, “They won’t be here until probably about tea time.”

 

“Aww but that’s ages away,” suddenly her nose wrinkled and she looked down at Kyung, “Ewww, you’re all stinky Oppa Key! You need a shower.”

 

Kyung tried to get up again but failed, “Gah! Let me up and I’ll go and have a shower then. I just wanted to see if they would have been able to skip orientation and stuff.”

 

Shaking his head, Kyo chuckled, “No one escapes orientation. No matter who you are.”

 

Bradley chuckled when Jae deliberately stepped on Kyung as well on his way to flop next to the eldest group member in his sick state and snuggle into him, “Kyung, I’ve already got my own hyper and impatient child to deal with, I don’t need you on top of that.”

 

Finally able to get up, Kyung grinned before flopping onto Mama Bear once again, taking Saki with him, “Fine, then I’ll make you all also have to take a shower!”

 

There was a general madness over the whole situation but they were all laughing regardless. Today was certainly going to be one of the brightest days that they had in a long while.

 

~~

 

Kiyeol stared up at the school which they were currently being shown around and blinked, wondering what it would be like to be going to class with others who he knew were exactly the same as him. There were a few gathered groups of boys his own age, all in uniform and they seemed to be so happy and carefree. He felt just a little bit on the nervous side as he had mainly taken classes online with JustHi but H/UN liked to try and keep some things normal apparently. He nearly jumped when an arm s around his waist and he smiled sweetly up at Jongki, so glad to have the other in orientation with him. He didn’t know if it were simply by chance or not but it made him feel all the better to have the elder’s presence there. “You okay?” Jongki asked gently.

 

The boy nodded in response, “Yeah, I just never expected it to be like this.”

 

“I know what you mean,” Jongki replied with a grin, “Don’t worry though, we’ll get through this. Just take it as the start of a new adventure.”

 

“Yo, Jongki! Kiyeol!” came a shout from across the way and the pair looked up to see Sunwoo waving to them from his own little group. He seemed to be a little taller since they had last seen each other and the instructor barely blinked when he broke rank to run over to the pair and hug them, “I didn’t realise you were getting inducted today.”

 

“Neither did we,” Jongki said with a grin, “Shows just how bad we are at keeping in contact with one another.”

 

“Have you heard from any of the others yet?” Kiyeol asked, though both older boys knew that he was really asking ‘Anyone know where Mama Bear is at?’

 

Sunwoo shook his head, “Nope. Though it would be cool if it were today as well. But there again it depends on when they got the letters out. I didn’t find out about this until two days ago.”

 

Jongki rolled his eyes, “That’s cause your useless with the mail and don’t read thing properly, Sunny.” He was smiling happily at being back with the others; it felt as though his family were slowly all coming back together. He could only hope that the rest of BrightSide were here as well as that would just make today completely perfect. After the stress of the last few months he had nearly quit the entertainment industry for good. But finally he was on orientation for H/UN and it felt like his first day had felt all those years ago.

 

“Whatever, Jongki,” Sunwoo replied, realising that his little group had moved off with a blink, “Looks like I’m stuck with you guys for now.”

 

“Wouldn’t have it any other way, Sunny,” Jongki replied, lightly tugging the other as the group set off in another random direction to continue on with the tour before signing the paperwork.

 

It didn’t take much longer to finish, especially considering that the main dormitory buildings weren’t for them to move into as they were already assigned a group and would be moving straight into their own ‘House’ once they had finished. They would have to do around a month’s training to get back into the swing of things and to prepare for their new debut obviously but it was something that they had been told about well in advance so it wasn’t too bad. Whilst the newbie’s went to do their induction paperwork and be assigned rooms and keys and get the photos taken for ID’s and the likes, Jongki, Sunwoo and Kiyeol were led off to a different room in order to sort out the contract and get their information stored correctly.

 

“Guys!” the door had barely been opened when Jinseok’s voice came across and suddenly they were engulfed by the currently blond haired boy, “It’s been far too long.”

 

Jongki hugged the other back and smiled, feeling his heart coming back together again piece by piece, “Jin, when did you get here?”

 

“Sometime this morning, spotted Sang standing out as he usually does and been stuck with him ever since,” Jin replied, his eyes wrinkling happily as he smiled and turned his attention to the other two to hug them.

 

“Thanks for that, you git,” Sang said huffily from the table where he was busy filling out some paper work, “I’ve missed you to.”

 

Kiyeol grinned and virtually ran to the other; glad to see the steam punk obsessed boy looking like something out of an age old photograph, wrapping his arms around the other in a hug. “Don’t be grumpy, Sang,” he said gently, “You know Jin’s only jealous.”

 

“Ha-ha,” Sang grinned, hugging the other back just as hard, “Of course he’s jealous. Hence why he’s rolling his eyes at me right now.”

 

There was much laughter at that comment but the seriousness of the situation at hand delayed anymore talk as they went through the details of the contracts with a fine tooth comb. After getting pretty much burned by JustHi, no one was prepared to go through the same crap once again. However as Jongki read through the final terms and conditions, he realised with a slight jolt that this was a far superior and well thought out situation. Finally he was working for a company who didn’t just see them as a way to make money, that was part of their goal naturally, but they also saw them as being a major part of the company and wanted to treat them more as employees with rights and clauses to help them out. He smiled as he signed his name for the final time and leaned back.

 

The man who was doing the contracts smiled warmly towards him, “All finished? Right, let’s get a picture taken and then we’ll get you the keys.”

 

Jongki smiled and nodded, stepped up and headed to get the ID picture taken. Soon they would all be back together and he couldn’t wait.

 

~~

 

The door opened just a little after seven thirty and the first thing that the five reunited boys notice was the wonderful smell of food that had just been prepared. The next thing they noticed was Kyung as he virtually barrelled into the half oblivious group and began hugging with a happy yell. “You finally made it through, we thought that you weren’t going to get here till midnight at this rate,” the dancer said, grinning like an idiot.

 

“At least let them get inside Kyung,” came the muffled voice of Jae as he tried to disguise the fact that he was blowing his nose yet again, “Honestly, some of us can’t get through you to hug them.”

 

The leader grinned and pulled out of Kyung’s grasp to hug the obviously ill boy fondly, “The weather still affects you I see?”

 

“Course it does,” Jae said, trying not to sneeze on Jongki but ending up catching Kiyeol instead before the youngster made a noise of complaint and hugged him anyway, “even with the better heating it effects me.”

 

Sang grinned cheekily, “Oh well, some things don’t change then right? But whose that?” he said pointing to the tall dark haired boy in the archway to the living room.

 

“Boys this is Kyo Lee Gi, commonly known at Kyo,” said their new manager Jang Kuso who had finally managed to get everyone indoors to close off the weather, “He’s going to be your new lead vocalist.”

 

Kyo bowed in greeting towards the group, looking nervous and out of synch with the rest of them, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

 

Jongki returned the bow, “It certainly is Kyo, I’ve heard a good deal about you from Kuso. Looking forward to working with you.  

 

“Oppas!”

 

There came a happy wail from the top of the stairs and the next second an all too familiar small girl, dressed in the exact same Hello Kitty night dress and slippers appeared at the foot of the stairs having ran all the way down it with her arms outstretched. “Oppas, Oppas, Oppas!” Saki virtually squealed, sounding more than happy to see the others and there came various calls of joy as the boys scooped up the little girl and embraced her with hugs and kisses.

 

Bradley chuckled as he made his way down the stairs at a more sedate pace and sighed, “Thank god you lot got here at long last, you don’t want to know the day I’ve had keeping her calm cause she’s been so excited to see you lot.”

 

Pulling away from the others immediately, Jongki ran to the group’s eldest and engulfed him in a hug that felt like no other. He had known that Bradley was already at H/UN but just seeing him there, with Saki, was more than enough for the Leader. “You’re really here aren’t you?” he said pathetically, “You’re not going anywhere right?”

 

Bradley smiled, returning the hug and placing a kiss on Jongki’s forehead, “No, no plans to for a long while. I’m home, Jongki. I’m home.”